Marijuana and Autism
Good Morning America's website featured a story about a mother who has been giving her child marijuana in order to combat the effects of autism on her son. Her son was losing weight and they could not get him to eat, he was violent and a danger to himself and everyone around him. Marijuana calmed him down and made him want to eat again.
I highly recommend everyone read the article. For an American news program it is surprisingly well balanced, despite some factual errors.
Factual errors:
Statement:
"It can cause psychosis, may lead to schizophrenia."
Truth:
There has been no studies that found any causality links between either psychotic episodes nor schizophrenia and marijuana.
Statement:
"And while marijuana may be available in pill form"
Truth:
THC is available in pill form marketed under names such as marinol, however this is not the same as marijuana. While they did point out this later on in the article to some extent I still felt it was misrepresented as THC does not equal marijuana, THC is just one of the active ingredients of marijuana. And a point they did miss out was the dose of THC is not as easy to control with marinol since each pill is considerably higher dose than you would normally get with a single joint or some pot brownies.
Posts
Oh god, not any other ways to solve the problem?
ReplyDeleteSure there are. There are many ways to deal with autism. However the litany of medication that you must be on will either keep them doped up or you'd be constantly on the lookout for side effects and wondering what the effects of mixing all those drugs. This woman was able to seriously decrease the number of drugs her son was taking in order to maintain control over his autism, you don't think that is a good thing? Marijuana is a drug just like any other, it works in this case, why is it such a bad thing? Should the mother return to the cocktail of drugs she was giving to to her son that wasn't working just because the government claims that marijuana is more dangerous. Here is a list of just SOME of the side effects from common autism medication:
ReplyDeleteweight loss
weight gain
sedation
agitation
constipation
diarrhea
increase in the pediatric suicide rate
headaches
gastrointestinal disturbances
blurred vision
Seizures
cardiovascular complications
liver inflammation
tardive dyskinesia: involuntary movements that are debilitating and occasionally permanent
neuroleptic malignant syndrome: a serious condition involving high blood pressure, confusion, sweating, muscle spasms, and fever.
nausea
vomiting
frequent urination
thyroid dysfunction
kidney damage
And that's just a short list of the side effects of the most common drugs.