Mom gets investigated by social workers after advocating marijuana reform

Branden, Renee, and Rachel Petro
LITHIA, FL — A child-abuse investigation has been launched on a Florida mom after she made some public statements in support of medical freedom. Social workers intruded into her life in order to look for excuses to seize her children.

This is the situation that Renee Petro is facing. She is the mother of a boy with a terrible illness. Branden, age 12, has been diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy which results in uncontrolled seizures and can be fatal. Her desperate quest to save him is also what has drawn the scornful eye of the state.

A Perplexing Illness


Renee and Branden when the illness began.

Branden was perfectly healthy until 2010, when he fell suddenly ill during a visit to Renee’s home country of Jordan. An unexplainable swollen lump on Branden’s neck was followed by fever, then periods of lethargy and fatigue. Within a week Branden had his first seizure.

Branden was then put through countless tests, doctors, and pharmaceutical drugs. His family took him for treatments in Jordan and then in Germany. Doctors were at a loss to explain or solve the problem. They put him into a medically-induced coma.

“No one could figure out what was wrong with him,” Renee told Ladybud Magazine. “They brought in infectious disease specialists and numerous neurologists. They did an MRI, a CAT Scan, tested for meningitis, tried all these different seizure drugs. I kept thinking, let’s just rewind, this can’t really be happening.”

Branden’s medically-induced coma lasted a month, and the doctors had administered a battery of harsh pharmaceutical drugs, including Phenobarbital, Topamax, Dilantin, Depakote, Lamectal, and high doses of steroids.


Renee tends to Branden during his prolonged hospital stay.

Despite all the drugs, the seizures continued after the coma ended. Worse, his mind was obviously being altered by the drugs. He growled and hissed like an animal, and was having hallucinations of bugs crawling all over the room. He had to re-learn to eat and walk.

“I wondered, how could this be?” Renee recalled tearfully to Ladybud. “A month ago he was swimming, playing, being normal, and now he’s in this hospital hallucinating… I was like, what did you do to my son?”

The Petro family then traveled back to the United States. Branden endured numerous more doctors, tests, and drugs. Finally, one doctor diagnosed Branden with a disease that had only been classified 2 years earlier: Febrile Infection Related Epilepsy Syndrome (FIRES).

In Search of a Treatment

With no known cure and no proven treatment plan, doctors could only offer haphazard attempts to treat Branden using dangerous and unpredictable methods. Harsh pharmaceutical drugs and a nerve-stimulating implant failed to stop the seizures. Branden’s condition left him with partial paralysis and severe learning disabilities. He also was overcome with suicidal depression, “talking about killing himself constantly,” which his mom attributes to the pharmaceuticals.

When he was prescribed a drug that is known to cause blindness, Renee says she thought, “there had to be another way.”


Branden Petro before falling ill.

The desperate mom began to research and look for alternatives, since doctors had no real viable treatments to offer. She was inspired when she discovered the story of an epileptic boy from California had been successfully treated with medical marijuana. Six-year-old Jayden David suffered from debilitating seizures and had been prescribed 22 pharmaceutical drugs that left him suffering and immobilized. After switching to treatments of medical marijuana, Jayden was running, playing, and climbing, and off of nearly every one of his former drugs.

Jayden’s story was very encouraging to Renee. She had no previous interest in marijuana but was becoming quite convinced that it should be a legal option for patients to choose from. However, in a strange irony, a natural plant like cannabis is prohibited for any reason while dangerous pharmaceutical drugs are readily prescribed.

Renee Petro became a vocal advocate for reforming marijuana laws. She organized rallies and spoke to the media. Her family’s desperate situation had made it evident that man-made drugs could not solve every problem. There was no justification for the government to prohibit the fruits of nature.

“I just want my son back,” Renee said in an interview with the Tampa Tribune. She felt that cannabis treatments, which have been used successfully to treat epilepsy in numerous cases, may be Branden’s last hope for survival.

Renee became a public figure in the fight to make marijuana legal for medical use in Florida. She traveled to Tallahassee to testify before a state legislative committee. She described Branden’s desperate condition and advocated legal reform.

When asked if she would she would commit a crime for her children, Renee said, “I think these medications are criminal,” gesturing to Branden’s prescribed medications. “It’s criminal that they give these to our children, knowing what they do, and won’t look outside the box.”

State Retaliation

Shortly after Renee went publicly before lawmakers for the cause of medical freedom, the Petro home was intruded upon by state bureaucrats who had launched an investigation on the family.


Renee and Branden.

The Department of Children and Families (DCF) interrogated the Petro’s children on March 25th, looking for reasons to break up the family.

“I was scared,” explained Renee’s daughter Rachel. ” She [the social worker] asked me, like, ‘Do you like living in this house? Does anyone scare you? Does my mom give Branden illegal drugs?’”

Renee says her family was “violated” by the investigation. “I feel like they raped us. They’re taking advantage of the situation,” she said to FOX-13.

“I feel like our family was targeted, just because I’m doing what our beautiful country is built on: Freedom of Speech. I’m just trying to change and better the world that we live in,” Renee said to Ladybud.

“My daughter was terrified. She was afraid she was going to be taken away from our family,” Renee said.

Despite her advocacy of changing the laws, Mr. and Mrs. Petro insist they have never attempted to give Branden marijuana. Since the beginning, they have expressed their fear of the state’s ability to snatch children if they were to administer treatments that were not sanctioned by the government.
“My daughter was terrified. She was afraid she was going to be taken away from our family.”

They have faithfully given Branden his 5 daily prescription drugs, along with a legal supplement made from hemp extract.

“It hurts a lot that my son is suffering and people have taken it upon themselves to hurt us,” Renee said in an interview.

The bureaucrats claimed that they received an “anonymous tip” that the Petros had altered Branden’s treatment on their own accord. Taking such liberties would be all the grounds the state needs to seize the children. Renee pointed out that the questions being asked of the children were more of a personal inquisition of her mothering skills.

“I’ve never used Cannabis medicine for Branden,” says Renee. “I know fully well that Cannabis would help him, but because I live in an ‘illegal’ state we have never tried it. I have not broken any laws.”

“I would not do anything to jeopardize losing my child,” she said, but added that her resolve for changing the law was only strengthened.

“This isn’t going to stop me. This is only going to challenge me even more.”

Renee Petro says she has intentions of fleeing to the state of Colorado where she can legally seek treatment for her epileptic son. Frustration from the lack of results from the conventional medicines and the harassment from state agencies has made her consider what some call “medical marijuana refugees.” Petro says that she has been inspired by other moms who have successfully turned their sickly children into “normal” kids again. The family feels that they must act fast for the health and safety of Branden.

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