"J" is an autistic child who also has post-surgical and bowel-related chronic pain. His autism manifested itself as aggression rather than simple withdrawal, resulting in severe behavioral problems. Authorities in Rhode Island granted the parents a license to give their child medical marijuana (they opted to do so in the form of brownies). The results were dramatic:
This post is likely to elicit strong opinions; I would encourage everyone to at least browse the original source articles rather than basing judgments only on the excerpts above.
The article is written in two parts. Link for original article. Link for followup.
Via Metafilter. Photo credit Marie Lee.
Pre-pot, J. ate things that weren’t food… His pica become so uncontrollable we couldn’t let him sleep with a pajama top (it would be gone by morning) or a pillow (ditto the case and the stuffing)… The worst part was watching him scream in pain on the toilet, when what went in had to come out… Almost immediately after we started the cannabis, the pica stopped. Just stopped. J. now sleeps with his organic wool-and-cotton, hypoallergenic, temptingly chewable comforter.
Next, we started seeing changes in J.’s school reports… An aggression is defined as any attempt or instance of hitting, kicking, biting, or pinching another person. For the past year, he’d consistently had 30 to 50 aggressions in a school day, with a one-time high of 300. The charts for June through July, by contrast, showed he was actually having days—sometimes one after another—with zero aggressions.
This post is likely to elicit strong opinions; I would encourage everyone to at least browse the original source articles rather than basing judgments only on the excerpts above.
The article is written in two parts. Link for original article. Link for followup.
Via Metafilter. Photo credit Marie Lee.
Pot? No, I'm talking about amphetamines, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, all sorts of strong substances that could zombify a horse.
Long term results? Testing? Who cares! It'll make em sit still in a chair for eight hours a day, training for a life of a miserable office drone/professional vide game player/prison inmate.
It's a national disgrace, which will probably have repercussions for decades to come. It's morally abhorrent and any parents who subject their parents to this should be put in prison. How any Christian allows their children to be dosed up with all sorts of completely unnatural drugs is beyond me.
For the record, I was put on 9 amphetamine pills a day and several anti-depressants when I was 16. They royally f***** me.
So, some kid is on pot? Big deal. Maybe it's better he isn't, but here's a good rule of thumb - was it made by God/nature? Has it been used for thousands of years? It's probably safe. Neither of which could be said about the pharmaceutical diarrhea we recklessly shove down our kids throats year after year.
Some folks say that Pot helps with ADD. It certainly has negative side effects, but I don't think they compare to DOSING LITTLE F***** KIDS WITH SPEED.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31388177/ns/health-cold_and_flu/
Ah, someone had to go there.
While I'm glad that you see less wrong with this particular scenario, I'm nonetheless dismayed by the attitude of your post. I can agree that pharmaceuticals such as ritalin and antidepressants are over-perscribed in our society, I feel strongly that mental illnesses are VASTY under-diagnosed.
In our culture, we still labour under the pretence that if you can't SEE an illness, it must be imaginary. "He doesn't want to work because he's lazy." or "There's nothing wrong with that girl that a quick cuff across the face won't fix."
Depression, chronic fatigue, attention-deficit disorder are real diseases that are doubly hard to cope with due to the lack of sympathy its sufferers must endure. For many, drugs (including typically recreational drugs such as cannabis) are the only hope for a normal life. I'd rather live in a system where those treatments are readily available than one where even doctors scoff at me.
my cousin has suffered from grand mal seizures for much of his life. he has been on and off nearly every medication the doctors could throw at him. they gave him horrible side effects. massive weight gain, nausea, MORE seizures, and turned him into a zombie. what's kept him from having seizures for years now? marijuana :)
The warning label says "may increase the chance of asthma-related death," This is an asthma medication that could cause you to die from asthma, and it's labeled as 'SAFE' by the FDA... let's look at the 'negative' side-effects of marijuana, let's see... uhm... the munchies, which is a good thing if your illness effects your appetite.
And for the record, pot never helped me with my ADD. It usually just made me nauseous. But I think it's great that it can help other people. I wouldn't dream of saying that parents who give their child something that helps should be put in prison just because I've had bad experiences with it.
I know that ADHD is a spectrum, and the severe cases may need medications, but it seems that we're over-medicating children just because there are now drugs available. When all you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails.
As for pot, if it works, what's the harm? Seems like it worked for this kid, so let him be.
DRob, I think you meant that it made you nauseated, that is unless you meant that it caused you to make the people around you feel sick.
"Regardless of what people say about pot, it’s a drug"
No it isn't. It's an Herb. It doesn't require any sort of processing, lab equipment or mixing. It's all done by God. Just pick it, dry it, and use it.
"A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function." (via Wikipedia)
And yes it is, drugs aren't confined to the chemical shit they sell in pharmacies. Don't get me wrong though, I have nothing against weed, in fact I think it should be globally legalized.
In a situation where a patient presents with extreme symptoms, two questions should be asked with regards to a potential treatment; is the potential for negative consequences worth the alleviation of symptoms? And how do alternatives compare?
In this case, it seems as if the benefits far outweigh potential negative consequences.
So to you, 'drug' carries the qualifier of 'must be synthetic'?
What a positively useless definition. I'm glad the medical field uses a completely different definition to yours.
and started smoking pot i became calm and relaxed it was great.
I don't know why you put the word in quotation marks.
However, there are a lot less dangers associated with it than many, many pharmaceuticals on the market.
I was not necessarily condemning all pharmaceuticals..I know at least one person who swears that hardcore anti-psychotics saved him from screaming insanity.
What gets me is the rank hypocrisy of it all - society is always freaking out about "the children", saying that we shouldn't legalize drugs because "it sends the wrong message to the children." And then, we FORCE children to take extremely strong drugs, even if they don't want to.
There have been cases where CPS was called because the parents REFUSED to give their children Ritalin. How utterly evil is that?
Some pharmaceuticals are useful. Many of the big pharma companies, however, have demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that is grossly fraudulent and harmful - rivaling the harm of street drugs, but on a larger scale. The folks who head these companies should be thrown in prison for ten times longer than some corner crack dealer.
For the record, here's how I cured my ADD: I stopped eating sugar. I stopped drinking all soda. I stopped eating all processed foods. I stopped eating all fast foods. I saw an immediate change, and did quite well in college with no drugs whatsoever.
Imagine, a treatment that has only POSITIVE side effects, and is free! What an idea!
A side note, something to always remember about drug prohibition is this: it is a policy that gives a monopoly on drug sales to criminal cartels. It is the drug mafia's greatest friend. They would HATE to see drugs legalized. The war on drugs is currently in the process of driving our neighbor to the south into chaos and civil war. It is an utterly insane, absurd, and failed policy.
Signed,
I don't even smoke pot but don't care if some people do.
if it helps that kid? smoke up little dude.
Don't be a grammar Nazi Nazi Mouserz
@Dax: Ummm…
“A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function.” (via Wikipedia)
Well, I guess that makes garlic, sugar, salt, and hot sauce drugs also.
“A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function.” (via Wikipedia)"
Sugar does this. Is sugar a drug? What about Water? It alters my bodily function if I have too much of it. (I'd drown and my body would cease functioning, thus, an alteration.)
Cloves can make you hallucinate. Salvia, too. But in a much smaller dose. Why isn't clove considered to be a drug, but a spice? Salvia is an herb, but viewed as a drug.
It's easy to split hairs, isn't it?
The push to make it illegal because it was a dangerous, addictive drug... was entirely fabricated. Watch Reefer Madness if you haven't. It makes people violent and want to kill people with an axe, after all. Before the 60's, it was seen as an ethnic drug. Great way to scare the white american family from it.
Capitalism is why Marijuana is illegal. Ignorance is why it remains illegal.
I too do not see the difference, ethically or legally, between using this drug as opposed to any other prescription pharmaceutical. If it is being used because it is the best option, based on sound reasoning, then why not?
I am one of those right-wing moral conservatives. Well, I probably lean more libertarian than extreme right. I support making cannabis a legal substance, for medical and personal use. With reasonable regulation similar to other substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Quite frankly I think most commercial tobacco products may be just as bad or worse (health-wise) than marijuana.
Do I have to hand in my right-leaning conservative membership card now? ;-)
BTW, I am very happy for this family.Generally, if your child has autism, you will be forced to either spend all of the money you have for treatments that do very little or nothing at all or feel horrible about not being able to afford to help your own child. Congratulations to this family!!
I'm glad that this boy is getting the help he needed in a manner that doesn't violate the law. I really think that the United States ought to seriously reconsider its laws regarding cannabis. I also really think it will be a very long time before this happens. Every success story such as this one reminds me even more how many people are ignoring a viable option of treatment because of the negative stigma placed on it due to a draconian law. Perhaps one day cannabis will be universally accepted as legitimate medicine once more, as it was a hundred years ago. I own a very old leather-bound copy of the USP-NF which lists cannabis as a useful drug for a number of conditions, and even recommends a company to purchase it from.
I'm not saying every drug used 100 years ago was valid, in fact far from it, but while most were discontinued or phased out by finding better alternatives, or through rigorous medical testing, cannabis was thrown out generally for racial and economic reasons.
Trust a plant that has been in known use for over 4,700 years...
or
Trust a pill from a pharmaceutical company that was invented in the last 20 years.
That's no choice at all.