12-year-old girl sues Jeff Sessions in a fight to legalize medical marijuana

A 12-year-old girl is a mission to get medical marijuana legalized and she’s going head-to-head with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a lawsuit to make it happen.

Alexis Bortell says she taking her case to court because she needs cannabis in order to treat her severe form of epilepsy known as intractable epilepsy.

“One night, I had the worst seizure of my life [and] after that our doctor actually said [we had to] choose between brain surgery or moving to Colorado to get my medicine-- Haleigh’s Hope. So we were basically after talking to many politicians, forced out of Texas and we were forced to move here in Colorado because it’s illegal in Texas to get my medicine,” Bortell told FOX Business’ Ashley Webster on “Varney & Company.”

Colorado is one of 29 states that have legalized medical marijuana, but is one of only seven states that have legalized it for recreational use.

Bortell’s attorney Michael Hiller elaborated on what the lawsuit was really about.

“Well the suit is actually to invalidate the controlled substances act as unconstitutional. Right now cannabis is a schedule one drug under the Controlled Substances Act, which means federally its illegal, which means that Alexis can’t travel to Washington to lobby her representatives. She can’t really travel across state lines safely, so what we’re trying to do is invalidate it at the federal level and that we believe will pave the way toward legalization throughout the United States,” he said.

Hiller also explained why he is confident that they will win the lawsuit.

“I don’t think we’ve been in a better position to legalize than we are right now, the evidence we’ve collected, the facts we’ve uncovered really make clear that the United States Government knows that cannabis is actually safe and medically effective, but for some reason the United States government continues to render it illegal for people like Alexis who desperately need the medication to preserve their health and their lives,” he said.

And, they’re going after Sessions because he has been a longtime opponent of the substance, even going as far as saying, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” last year.

Bortell added that she would love the opportunity to speak with Sessions on why this law needs to be passed.

“Cannabis has saved my life. If I stay in Texas and got brain surgery who would have known what would have happened, I could have died. Seizures they are really scary because just imagine being stuck in your own body, you can’t scream, you can’t say anything, you can’t call for help, that could kill me,” she said