Mom: Marijuana Saved My Autistic Son's Life (VIDEO)

Kids may seem an unlikely group to include in the medical marijuana debate, but some children with autism are reaping life-changing benefits from the drug. Mieko Hester-Perez, a mother in California, told the Early Show's Hattie Kauffman that marijuana saved her son's life.

Hester-Perez's 10-year-old son, Joey, was uninterested in food and weighed a startling 48 pounds. "Everyone that came to my home was watching me watch Joey die," Hester-Perez told Kauffman. "He was deteriorating hourly."

But that all changed with a batch of marijuana brownies. After four years of only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Joey's appetite came to life and revived him in other ways as well.

"We're seeing Joey come out," Hester-Perez said. "He's never made noises, we didn't even know he could make noise until the first batch of brownies."

While Kauffman noted that there's no evidence of marijuana helping with autism symptoms, other parents have come out with similar success stories, as seen in Marie Myung-Ok Lee's story on Slate's Double X blog in May.

WATCH the Early Show's interview with Hester-Perez:

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Comments

[MotherTrucker]

10:15 PM on 01/12/2010

That is just amazing! I read the linked story as well and I'm just blown away. This is just fantastic! Autism is just a frustrating thing to figure out and to see something working that is so unconventional is awesome.

[mofmars333]

08:41 AM on 11/25/2009

Follow up on the news;

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AutismNews/mother-son-marijuana-treat-autism/story?id=9153881

[Dale Larson]

01:09 PM on 11/24/2009

Pot is safer than water. You can OD with water, not with pot. I recommend the following new book to update people's fact portfolio:

"Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?"

It's available on Amazon.

More people have died from the war on Marijuana than have been killed by the actual drug. Dead from Marijuana overdose = 0 (in the entire history on mankind in fact).

This drug war is doing way more human damage than good. Then there is the money:

* DEA
* Lawyers
* Prisons (many are for-profit).
* Local and Federal law enforcement
* Forgone income to the prohibition generated criminal enterprises.
* College age children banished from obtaining college loans.
* College age children encouraged to drink alcohol because of disproportionate punishment for pot.

It's a public health problem. It should be treated like alcohol and tobacco. Education and unfettered access to treatment should be the approach. Sending these people to jail is just crazy.

In essence these people are being charged with a crime against themselves and that just doesn't make sense. Do you go to jail for riding a bicycle without a helmet? Do you go to jail for smoking cigarettes? Nope... they are personal choices.

[fabucat]

10:24 AM on 11/24/2009

My aunt & uncle were loyal Ohio Republicans. How Republican? My uncle was press secretary for Ohio Republican Governor Rhodes. When my aunt came down with cancer of the esophogus, she lost weight and appetite. Her son bought her some marijuana and this 70-something Republican lived a few more years as a result.

[DeeDubya]

09:48 AM on 11/24/2009

When the cotton industry felt threatened by hemp, their lobby dumped enough money into the system to inspire the cannabis propaganda machine.

First, they called it "Marijuana." Seems harmless, but that was the name of a Mexican cigarette. If it's Mexican, and it's not food, it scared early 20th century white America.

Then there was Reefer Madness. A joke of a movie. After that, white America was warned that if they let their kids listen to jazz music, the black musicians would get them high with reefer and then have sex with their pure, white daughters. Want that to happen?

The government exploited fear and racism to demonize this plant. It's a plant. For those who believe in a god, it was created by a god. Supposedly, their god doesn't make mistakes.

[b1rd67]

02:58 PM on 11/24/2009

In fact it was both the cotton and paper industries. The main players who called in their Congressional markers were the Dupont, Hearst and Mellon families!

[seerickson]

11:44 PM on 01/12/2010

Oil industry to, because in the 1930s an effective fuel for autos was made out of hemp oil. And of course the tobacco industry. Our lobbyists at work. How much loss and suffering have they caused?

[Balzac]

09:12 AM on 11/24/2009

The best way to make it available for medical purposes is to decriminalize it for everyone. I really despise the phrase "medical marijuana". It suggests to me that some day, it will be classified as a "medicine" to be regulated by commercial marijuana vendors. That would be very offensive to me.

Suppose during prohibition, a number of "activists" stood up to say "Alcohol has medical benefits! Allow doctors to proscribe alcoholic beverages for the sake of those who need it as medicine. We can make medical alcohol in our medical breweries, medical distilleries, medical wineries. Get your prescriptions from a doctor".

Who is the one person I need to focus on? Should I blast the "Drug Czar"? I know the president doesn't need any more distractions. I don't want to be a nuisance about this. But you know what? I'm getting tired of waiting. Would it be inappropriate to become foul-tempered again? Or is it worth waiting for something to be done? If things are going to get substantially worse, more people are going to get angry. I'm going to harvest their anger and get some results, finally.

[CynAnne]

08:51 AM on 11/24/2009

Over 3,000 years ago, Chinese doctors, while creating a reference guide for plants, flora and their use in treatment, referred to cannabis as a "..wondrous herb.." which they recommended for many ailments - why is this still being treated as a 'debate' on marijuana's many benefits..?

[etiennemacchias]

08:52 AM on 11/24/2009

I don't know. You should ask the same question to the irrational conservatives.

[JackVandenBerg]

07:35 AM on 11/24/2009

I live in the Netherlands and recently went to my doctor for an ailment with my back pain.

He asked me if I had taken any over the counter medicines yet. I told him some ibuprofen which didn't help much.

Then he asked me if I had any weed at home (its legal here). I said yes we do in the freezer but haven't used it for a while.

He said ''try that before I write a RX for anything'.

That evening I rolled a small j and smoked it. Slept like a baby and when I woke up the pain was gone and hasn't returnd since.

[GrainneKathleen]

09:12 AM on 11/24/2009

it's an excellent muscle relaxant.

[proudblackman]

06:34 AM on 11/24/2009

that mother should be arrested for child abuse. I'm guessing she is an illegal anyway. I say deport them.

[imsosure]

07:20 AM on 11/24/2009

Right on brother man, book 'em and deport 'em and make doubly sure they suffer, suffer for no reason other than you don't like it. Talk about double standards, just so long as they suffer right?

[MichaelJ2006]

07:53 AM on 11/24/2009

you are one sick, uncompassionate republican.

[imsosure]

06:03 AM on 11/24/2009

That's because it works, for a lot of other things too.

[peteRed]

05:25 AM on 11/24/2009

god bless maria!

[T Specter]

05:21 AM on 11/24/2009

When will America remove its rectally_lodged head?

[Sievehead]

03:28 AM on 11/24/2009

I often think there must be some deep, metaphysical reason why cannabis, psilocybin and the other reality revealing substances are so feared and detested among various peoples. Perhaps the Universe really doesn't like us poking our collective nose up its dangling skirts too deeply; on the other hand, maybe it's just because a lot of really stupid, evil monkey-people decided that it was really useful to have something so pleasurable be so illegal, the better to keep control over the weaker, less demonic monkey-people; or maybe it's just as Mr. Natural once said to Flakey Foont: the Universe is completely insane.

[research]

03:21 AM on 11/24/2009

Turn on.

[CanUFeel2012]

02:50 AM on 11/24/2009

LEGALIZE IT....