Mental Health Blogs

I’m intrigued by these press accounts that keep cropping up concerning parents turning to medical marijuana to address their children’s autism irritability. From what I gather, it’s pretty clear that these kids aren’t responding to atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Abilify, both approved for autism irritability and the parents are turning to marijuana out of desperation. The pot is usually ingested as opposed to being smoked.

In the most recent account I’ve run across, a mother claims that medical marijuana saved her son’s life.

I doubt very much that any of us in California who voted to legalize medical marijuana in 1996 (I still lived in my native land then) had any idea that the day would come when kids would be ingesting pot for autism and, even more unexpectedly, ADHD. We thought it would all be about helping AIDS and cancer patients and people with glaucoma. But if pot works for autism, then it works for autism. And for people who are concerned over giving kids pot, I’d remind them that the antipsychotics used on these same kids are well known to cause all manner of health problems.

It sure would be nice to see some research on all of this–a Risperdal versus pot clinical trial–but as things stand now the feds will never permit it.

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Related posts:

1. Medical Marijuana For Autism?
2. Medical Marijuana on KevinMD
3. 6 Reasons To Be Skeptical Of Feds’ New Medical Marijuana Policy
4. Calif. Docs Using Medical Marijuana On Teens With ADHD
5. Going to Pot (or Let’s Talk about Medical Marijuana)