Although I went to high school and college in the '70s, I never tried or was even vaguely interested in pot. I am fairly certain my best friend at the time put himself through college growing the stuff, and we had a tacit agreement not to talk about it. In retrospect, my attitude was somewhat rigid, but I was a teenager and thought I knew everything.
Surprisingly enough, 30 years later, the plant has caught my interest. No, I am not trying to recapture my missed youth or wish to join the current wave of parents who are getting high with their kids. Talk about a way to connect with your children destined not to go well! There is just one word to explain my massive shift in thinking: autism.
Through many years of clinical practice, I have seen over a thousand people on the autism spectrum. While dietary alterations and supplements can help tremendously and can sometimes move children off the spectrum, residual behaviors and anxiety often remain.
The anxiety can be crippling. Nolan, a California teenager I worked with over many years, had progressed well with dietary changes and supplements in every area except nervousness. His extreme anxiousness made him a prisoner in his own home. His mother had tried numerous medications but none of them significantly affected his frazzled nerves. At one point, he was on double the adult dose of Prozac with only modest reduction in anxiety.
Enter pot -- or cannabis, to the botanically inclined. Some well-meaning friend thought it might calm Nolan down and suggested he take a few tokes. Being a teenager, he complied. Eureka! He had found "it." For the first time in his life, Nolan felt relaxed. Understandably, he desperately wanted more. His mother was excited something had finally helped him calm down, but at the same time she was horrified a "friend" would introduce her son to illegal drugs. She did not want him smoking pot or buying who knows what off the street. She wanted to pursue healthier, legal solutions.
Lucky for her, medical marijuana is legal in California and available in a liquid tincture. If we knew what ingredient in the cannabis was helping, there could be a safe and legal solution. Thus, began my foray into medical marijuana.
I learned that there are hundreds of potentially-interesting compounds in cannabis, but the ones we know the most about are the cannabinoids THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (Cannabidiol). In the 1980s, researchers discovered the brain was full of cannabinoid receptors or specific places for these chemicals to talk to the nervous system and create their effects.
THC is a mild euphoric with anti-inflammation and pain reducing properties. In other words, it makes you high, dulls your pain, and may also have some healing effects. Additionally, it is the compound that makes pot an illegal drug in most states. CBD does not have hallucinogenic properties. Instead, it has strong anti-anxiety and calming properties. Different species of marijuana have different percentages of THC and CBD. A species with higher amounts of CBD will be calming and may even make you sleepy, while one with intense amounts of THC could make you feel paranoid or more anxious. When you buy marijuana off the street, you have no idea what the heck you are getting since the whole process from field to consumer is illegal and obviously unregulated.
Medical marijuana is a whole different ball game. With a proper prescription, you can buy the strain of pot that has the healing properties you require in the form you prefer to consume it. Some of the better pharmacies can tell you the relative percentage of THC to CBD in the different products they sell. This was great news for Nolan's family. They could get high CBD, very low THC drops and reduce the large dosage of medication.
Jamie's family was not so lucky. In his late teens, Jamie's behavior became increasingly erratic and violent. Several autism specialists had prescribed every medication known to stabilize behavior, but instead of improving the situation, he was getting worse. When the head butting started, the family realized with horror that their only alternative might be to remove him from their home and school for the safety reasons. They wanted to try medical marijuana, but they lived in a southern state.
There was no way for her to get medical marijuana legally, but she could purchase hemp oil drops with CBD only. They are sold as an herbal supplement. These could have the potential calming effect they needed. Through her research, she found many other families with children on the spectrum who were experimenting with a similar strategy. The product took several weeks to arrive due to high demand, but preliminary results are promising and many issues remain.
Medical marijuana may not be a miracle, but when it comes to the autism epidemic, we need as many ideas as possible and every safe tool we can get.