State Assembly Members Lobby for Compassionate Care Act
At the press conference, Dalila Kessaci of Scarsdale was joined by her 3-year-old daughter, Mellina, who has a serious form of epilepsy that causes infantile spasms. “My daughter has as many as 100 life-threatening seizures a week,” Kessaci said. “My entire family is living a nightmare that won’t end. We fell helpless at her side and terrified for her life. She deserves a better quality of life. She has tried dozens of highly toxic medications that have failed to help. Please do not let my daughter suffer or die from her seizures. Medical cannabis could literally be the thing that saves her life. The Assembly has stepped up. Now it’s time for the Senate to do the same.”
A physician pointed out that cannabis has the ability to quell seizures. It is less toxic than some highly addictive prescribed painkillers, helps bolster immune functions, and is less toxic to the brain and liver than alcohol. And other prescription drugs are now the leading cause of accidental deaths nationwide, she said.
“The medical benefits that can be derived from marijuana are far too great to ignore any longer,” Paulin said. “There are so many people suffering from a variety of diseases where medical marijuana would make a huge difference in their quality of life. We need to pass this legislation to help the thousands of patients that need specific strains of marijuana, such as children with Dravet Syndrome.”
Twenty states currently allow medical marijuana. Every state in the Northeast allows the use of medical marijuana except New York and Pennsylvania. A Quinnipiac poll last month found that 88 percent of New York voters supported the legalization of medical marijuana.
Maryanne Houser of Suffern was joined at Friday’s news conference by her 9-year-old daughter, Amanda, who suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. Amanda suffers at least one seizure a month, has tried eight drugs and is now on three prescribed drugs. Some days she is “catatonic” and can’t go to school, her mother said. And she’s had to be given rectal Valium to avert seizures, “which makes her drunk.”
While Amanda was too small to be seen by reporters and TV cameras from behind the press conference podium Friday, her words rang through loud and clear: “I want to be like the other kids and want to have real food and I want these seizures to stop,” she said.

Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.