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.

Study Downplays Marijuana's Link To Schizophrenia | AHN

Study Downplays Marijuana's Link To Schizophrenia | AHN

Wow I saw this article in my inbox and thought "great more cannon fodder to blow away the schizoid link", while it does somewhat do this, it doesn't do a very good job of it, and whats worse is the author makes a statement like "preventing young people from smoking marijuana is important for reasons like curbing tobacco use and drug dependence, and improving scholastic performance".

While the study might be a good thing, taking further steps away from the often debunked "schizophrenia link", its still full of fear mongering falsehoods.