thanks for joining us. a cnn special report "weed 6: marijuana & autism" starts right now. the following is a cnn special report. one plant, more than 400 compounds, we know can treat different ailments, but one, autism, it can be delays, and >> it effects millions of children. they can be nonsleshl, delayed, and sometimes even violent, injuring others and themselves. a curie loose i have. but now more than a dozen states have approved cannabis to treat autism and for some it's the jackpot. >> ready? time for drops. >> for others, it's a gamble. >> every day that i give the medicine to my daughter is a potential day for me ending up with a felony. >> the death penalty of family law. >> what if it was your child? would you take the risk? an ancient plant to treat a mysterious disorder of the brain. this is "weed 6: marijuana & autism." you are about to see kara zblartler's life. i want to warn you. this will be hard to watch. kara has severe autism. >> kara. stop it. her fits are dangerous, frequent, and disturbingly violent. >> i decided to journal all of her hitting and i started back in 2016. >> this is her mother, christie. we met up at their home in texas. >> closed fisted punches to her face. hold her down. aggression and self-injurious behaviors are, unfortunately, very common in especially in children with severe autism. >> for three decades, dr. trauner was the chief of pediatric neurology at uc san diego neurosciences and pediatrics departments. >> even some children higher functioning have self-injurious behaviors or aggressive behaviors. anything from repetitively banging their head against a wall to hitting their head with their hands to pinching themselves. >> is this any idea why that happens as part of the lloyd austin? >> it may oobs be similar to a lot of the other repetitive behaviors that they have. >> autism. asd for autism spectrum disorder is, by definition, a wide array of behaviors. but mild, more severe, the two core symptoms are social communication challenges, one-third are non-verbal, and, second, restrictive or repetitive behaviors, like rocking, flapping, even hitting. >> let's take a drink. >> particularly challenging for the zblartlers, kara is part of the 25% of children with asd who are aggressive. throwing objects, intentionally breaking things, hitting people, including themselves. making life unimaginably challenging for kara and her parents. but life has never been easy for kara. >> i went and did the blood tests. my levels were high and they said, oh, you're pregnant. >> after years of battling infertility, christie was pregnant with twins. >> it was 21 weeks gestation. i feel this pain immediately. >> you were incoherent? >> he found me with my head on my sink area and i had already vomited and i was already unconscious. >> wow. >> i had a stroke. >> it would be touch and go for 72 hours. doctors monitoring her and the baby's every move. and then five days after the stroke, christie's water broke. >> when they came out of the -- they were so small. they were just so tiny. >> baby a, named keely, was off the ventilator in two weeks and had no complications from the premature birth, by baby b, kara, would struggle from the very beginning. at ten hours old she had a brain bleed. yet, after months of around-the-clock care in the nicu, kara finally came home, diagnosed with cerebral palsy. they thought this would be her biggest challenge. at nine months she started intense physical and speech therapy and christie kept careful track of her daughter's progress as she learned to walk and talk. by october 2002, kara was almost 3 years old and could speak 68 words. >> apple, bubbles, knock knock. >> wouldof. >> and then october 2002, the list ends. >> right. >> you know, i heard her say "mama." >> i know it's hard to manalen that. >> i hear her in my dreams. so that's hurtful. >> i can imagine. i am so sorry. i'm so sorry. as the words stopped, the hitting started. >> age 4 to age 6 was really hard. we would take turns on who was going to hold and lay with her and make sure she is not going to punch her face and break her nose and eye sockets. >> watch what you are doing. that's right. >> and the developmental pediatricians say it's autism. >> that was around age 4? >> mm-hmm. >> what was that like to hear? >> terrifying. i knew nothing about it. >> but christie would quickly learn there is no cure. there are no definitive treatments, especially for someone who had such severe autism as kara. completely non-verbal. one night she repeatedly hit herself for 12 hours non-stop. >> at this a point it was, like, we need to go a different direction, you know. so that's when the antipsychotics, that's when they started, right after this. >> kara started taking a cocktail of medications called psychotropics, drugs used for adults and adolescents with psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. >> they just changed it from a constant to an every 15-minute kind of thing. >> definitely an improvement, but with a tremendous cost. mark says the drugs left kara unable to do anything. not present or aware of her surroundings. the little girl they had longed for, that little toddler full of words and smiles, was lost to them. >> it's permanent grief. >> yeah. >> show was robbed of a life. >> a life her parents would do anything to get back, even if it meant breaking the law. that when we come back. you're never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your discover card. hey hun hey, get your own vapors relax with vicks vapobath or with vicks vaposhower. take a soothing vicks vapo moment wherever you chose. the world is full of make or break moments. especially if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, it's time to make your move to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure, trouble breathing, throat tightness, face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have happened. tell your doctor about dental problems, as severe jaw bone problems may happen or new or unusual pain in your hip, groin, or thigh, as unusual thigh bone fractures have occurred. speak to your doctor before stopping, skipping or delaying prolia®, as spine and other bone fractures have occurred. prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium, serious infections, which could need hospitalization, skin problems, and severe bone, joint, or muscle pain. don't wait for a break. call your doctor now and ask how prolia® can help you. [ chantell ] when my teeth started to deteriorate, i stopped hanging out socially. it was a easy decision -- clearchoice. [ awada ] the health of our teeth plays a significant role in our overall health. chantell was suffering, and we had to put an end to that. the absolute best way to do that was through dental implants. [ chantell ] clearchoice dental implants changed everything. my digestive health is much better now. i feel more energetic. the person that i've always been has shown up to the party again. 2009, the suburbs of dallas. the powerful drugs that once helped severely autistic 10-year-old kara zartler were no longer working. >> the pharmacist said, this is the highest dose i have ever seen a 45-pound person on. this, to me, is equivalent to maybe a 2,000-pound horse. >> at that time kara was in school with 3,000 hits a day. >> you heard that right. thee see woo hit herself 3,000 times in a seven-hour school day. that is more than seven strikes every minute. the thing about a story like this -- >> want to eat something? >> it defines you. and everybody soon knew just had bad things had become. one day the zartlers' neighbor recommended cannabis. and not cbd, which has now become more commonly accepted as a medicine, but thc, the psychoactive part of the plant that gets you high or stoned, he said. he thought that thc might help calm kara. the zartlers were willing to try anything, but their home state of texas has the most restrictive medical cannabis laws in the country. so they couldn't do it legally. and the zartlers did have their own reservations. >> it's illegal. there is got to be a -- illegal for a reason. >> it took us a long time to get over the stigma. >> a stigma that this woman understands all too well. >> when we first started, nobody had really thought of using cannabis in a pediatric setting. >> many years ago award-winning novelist marie lee wrote a provocative "washington post" article about giving her son cannabis. but only now was she willing to sit down, talk about it. and introduce us to jason, who she calls jay. >> i think one of the biggest his characterizations that i got was, oh, you don't want to deal with your kid? you know, you are drugging your kid. >> ironic. even hypocritical, she said, because the medications initially friebed for jay were con considerably stronger than cannabis. >> they are essentially tranquilize ers. if you want to think of it more incharitably, they are kind of a chemical lobotomy. >> like the zartlers, marie tried almost every conventional and alternative treatment to help her son. none of them worked. and it was brutal. >> as soon as he got up he would start to scream and wail and writhe and i couldn't help him. as a parent that's the worst thing. he didn't want to be touched. then i had a lot of aggressions. he would attack us all the time. >> the college professor and award-winning writer used her skills to search for answers. consistently her research kept leading her back to cannabis. but jay's neurologist was initially reluctant to even consider it. >> he was very worried that if he helped us get a license by prescribing it, that if it ever got out that he was prescribing pot, that that was going to look very bad for him. >> remember, it was 2008. barely a dozen states had legalized medicinal cannabis and federally it was still illegal. the thought of giving it to a child, unimaginable. but they were lucky. they lived in rhode island, where cannabis was legal. >> he was probably the youngest person to have a cannabis license. >> with that license in hand marie was able to access cannabis from a grower in rhode island. but she was still nervous. there was no roadmap for a strain or a particular dosage. >> and i'm a big guidelines person, so not having a protocol was probably the most difficult part for me. what am i doing? >> so what marie decided to do, make herself the guinea pig. she would try different strains and doses first and then, if she felt okay, she would give them to her son. >> this is my writer diary. >> in fact. >> she shared a journal enthink from one of the early days. >> i feel joy and jay can feel it, too. how weird, yeah, how random. here we have that jason had zero aggressions. >> that's not something you had written probably for a long time, if ever? >> no. >> and it was jay's story that inspired many others to also try cannabis. >> okay. she is ready. >> including the zartlers. >> all right, girl. it was on a car ride like this when the zartlers first tried marijuana. rides that before cannabis they never even dreamed of taking because this would happen. >> but one day in june of 2009 they had no choice. kara had an important doctors appointment five hours way in galveston, texas. christy and mark decided to try to the marijuana brownies that their neighbor made. >> i gave it to her and she ate it and it was been an hour where she was sitting, no longer rocking, no longer hand flapping, no longer hitting, and she is sitting there and she is looking out the window and she is looking at me and smiling. it was like a miracle. >> i got to see it up close when i went on a drive with them after kara had a dose of cannabis. >> we would never be able to do this. >> this is an easier life for everybody. >> yes. >> an easier life. but one that would ultimately put their whole family in jeopardy. that story is later. but, first, why would it work? how would it work? unraveling the science of cannabis and autism. liberty mut. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ what if you could see the details of your great-grandparents wedding day... ...or the record that welcomed your great-grandmother to the world. your family story is waiting to be discovered, and now you can search for those fascinating details for free—at ancestry. my family's been devastated by covid-19. and we're not alone. we've all had to find new ways to keep going. and cue has made that easier. with cue, you get lab-quality covid-19 test results in just 20 minutes. speed and accuracy. it's just for the nba; it's for you too. cue health. the official covid-19 home test of the nba. go cue. go you. [microwave beeps] [ahh] ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm so defensive, i got bongos thumping in my chest ♪ ♪ and something tells me they don't beat for me ♪ ♪ i love romance, but i got eggshells around me ♪ ♪ don't step on 'em, don't step on 'em ♪ ♪ don't step on 'em, don't step on me ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ he'd better not take the ring from me ♪ in jerusalem? a modest apartment lives a larger-than-life presence in the cannabis world. wour visit while not in person because of covid is a virtual reunion with 91-year-old dr. rafael mashulum. >> how are you? >> quite a long time since you were here. >> i met him nearly a decade ago when we first started on this journey. and he is one of the scientists who changed my mind about cannabis as a medicine. his pioneering research and discovery of thc in the 1960s has him poised to win a nobel prize. >> ready? >> so the minute i heard about parents using cannabis to treat their kids with autism, i had to get his thoughts. can you give me some idea of how it even came to be that we would be thinking about cannabis to treat autism? >> cannabis works on autism. i sprongly believe on the basis of what we have seen in animal models and in people that use cannabis and the effects are definitely positive. there should be chincal trials we, should look at the doses. this is one of the fields that are very, very promising. >> across town in jerusalem another pioneer in cannabis research. he is doing those exact clinical trials he is talking about. you led the world's first chincal trial hookin looking at cannabis and autism. >> the first study was an open label study. we knew that there will be some placebo effect, but we were surprised that most parents reported that it substantially helped their children, not only for the disruptive behavior, but also for the social deficit. >> doctors like igor grant in california were paying attention. intrigued by the findings of this early research. >> quite a bit of data came out of israel. so this is some evidence that cbd may be helpful. >> so grant and dr. doris trauner launched their own study with cbd and autism here at the center for medicinal cannabis research in san diego. tell me about the study design. how did you approach it. >> it's a double blind placebo-controlled crossover study. each child gets placebo at one point and cbd at one point. but nobody knows when they are getting it. >> so i was actually watching the news and they had a segment on it that ucsd was looking for participants. ezra had begun to get more physical and aggressive. at one point i had a lot of bruises on me because he was getting more violent. >> joann's son ezra was diagnosed with autism when he was 22 months old. >> i heard people compare it to like losing a child. you lose the idea of the child that you were going to have. the life that you were going to have. the life that he is going to have. he is an herbivore. >> joanne tried everything she could think of to try to help her son. >> we tried gluten-free, kasen free, dairy free, homeopathic remedies. >> had you considered other meds before this, like psychotropic or knew owe lep particular medications? >> i didn't want to try because there were so many side effects. >> ready? >> for joanne, when it came to concerns about side effects, cannabis was different. >> i saw how much it could help other people and i thought, i mean, it's all natural. this may not be any real side effects with it. why not try it? >> so joanne moved forward and rol enrolling ezra in tclinical trial. >> he is a 9 now. >> it was that same question ma maribel gonzalez was struggling with when she enrolled her son in a trial. a double-blind study where cbdv, similar to cbd. i met the researcher along with maribel and carlos when the study first launched in 2019. how optimistic are you that this is going to work? >> 50/50. >> how much potential do you really think is here for cbd v to treat autism? >> the big advantages are it may have much less side effects than some of the other hemedicines ud to street severe disruptive behavior. >> in a sign of how quickly things changed, when this trial began two years ago cdbv, even though it's the nonpsychoactive part of the plant, was still considered a schedule one drug and had to be locked in this safe. >> squirt it on the side of your mouth, okay? >> when you talk about these ups and downs, i mean, how low has it gone? >> pretty low. low enough that he attacked me. but me knowing what he is going through, sometimes i have to think for him and myself. >> somebody said there is something that could help treat autism, how would it help you? >> probably i don't have to worry about getting angry over a certain schedule being broken. i would be plate happy about that. >> often times what parents are worried about, the headline is my kid is taking a cannabis drug and some people say, well, i can't believe you did that. >> i would be, well, i'm doing -- trying to find something to help my child because at the end of the day that's my child and i'm thinking for the future for him. >> and that's what we heard b again and again. maribel and carlos. marie and jay. >> here we go. >> the zartlers and kara. >> i remember them being desperate and in need of some help and really needing some balance for kara and for their own lives. >> remember, none of this comes easy. the zartlers' story takes a frightening turn. when we come back. american dream.ouncer]e for children in rural communities, it's slipping away. the gap between that dream and their reality is shocking. the gap between nutritious food and aching hunger, a good education and falling behind in school. but together, we can change that. with your help, local communities can get the food and resources they need to keep children well fed and ready for school, and if there were ever a time for you to help, it's now. sponsor a child with save the children and help give that child and so many others a chance for a better future. - you're doing more. you're giving them the opportunity, the hope, the ability to succeed. - [announcer] please call this number or go online to savesponsor.org and sponsor a child right here in america. for only $19 a month, you'll help give your sponsored child and other kids in their community access to: nutritious food, educational opportunities, safety and protection. when you call or go online and sponsor a child now, we'll send you this exclusive t-shirt to show you're changing lives as a child sponsor, and if you act now, your first month's gift will be matched thanks to a generous donor. - [woman] we try to make a safe haven with our programs and give them a chance to be kids. - [announcer] you can give them that chance when you call or go online to become a save the children child sponsor. when you do, you'll receive a photo and information about your sponsored child, and you'll get special progress reports on how your gifts combined with those of other caring sponsors are changing children's lives. - we've had probably the toughest year we've ever had, and save the children has been there every step of the way. - [announcer] in these difficult times, america's children are facing more hunger than ever before. they urgently need someone like you to care, so please call or go online to savesponsor.org right now. thank you. the search for cannabis in texas is challenging for the zartlers. dispensaries here are not allowed to produce a product potent enough in thc to best help kara, whether it's an emergency rescue medication to stop kara from punching herself or like today when we visit kara at home. it's busy and she needs cannabis to help slow things down and focus. mark gets her medication ready. >> i put a quarter teaspoon. that's what her dose is. >> he starts filling up what he calls kara's marijuana machine. a desktop vaporizer. >> i wait until this is hot to the touch. >> it heats up the ground cannabisnauer turning it into a vapor, which kara can easily inhale. it's the fastest, most immediate way to get the cannabis into her system, they tell me. >> just a moment. >> no, no, girl, let go. >> kara is eager. just look at her. she seems to know what's coming. >> you ready, girl? okay. let's mellow out. >> good. >> wow. >> she starts to settle down. at one point even clapping. >> she is hike, thank you, sir. >> seeming to thank them for the medicine she has received. and take a look. it seems to help her focus a bit and take the edge off. >> it's wonderful. she is aware now and she has the skills to assist and do more. it's phenomenal. i keep thinking i am going to hear her talk. i'm still having dreams she is going to speak to me. >> i am struck by -- she is not sedated but clearly not, you know, harming herself, hitting herself. >> she is happy. >> she is happy. >> she took to it quick in the sense she just like, well, i feel better. >> i want to be clear. it doesn't end all of her symptoms. but it helps. and christy believes they could have even better results if they had more options. >> i would thiek have the ability to go back and forth and try multiple strains to see what would work best for her, and we're just -- >> not in a position. >> right. >> because of the law. >> right, yeah. >> so, for now, their source is underground. a grower they met years ago when kara was a young child. >> i remember them being desperate and in need of some help. >> we found kara's secret supplier who was willing to meet with us as hong as we disguised their identity and did not reveal the location. >> we started testing together conservatively and documenting the trstrains and how they work for kara and the ones best for her. >> how did you put the puzzle pieces together for something totally new like this? >> there is a lot of groups and forums on the internet where autism parents that use cannabis as medicine talk about strains and specific ones. >> so this is jason's earlier -- >> marleie is one of those pare pioneers posting and sharing what worked for jay over the years as one of the youngest people with a legal medical marijuana card, marie and jay were able to try all sorts of different doses and strains and documented it all. >> he is getting a ton of cannabis. two cookies, three cookies. >> but this was another problem. once they found something that final hi worked, they would then worry that the supply would not be consistent and available. this is not the sort of prescription you can simply go to the pharmacy and refill. it's a plant dependent on ethical growers and mother nature. there were many times crops got destroyed or growers simply disappeared. and that's a scary proposition if you're a parent whose child is now dependent on cannabis to make his life more liveable. >> when the growers' plants died because he had a mite infestation, that became -- everything started happening again. the whole -- the injurious, we just saw so completely how it was helping him. >> if this sounds audacious, overwhelming even, it is. and just because it worked for jay does not mean it would necessarily work for another child no matter how similar they are. there is not yet the data. this aren't the studies as of now. there isn't the confidence to plunge forward. >> it's not a good idea to run out and buy it and just try to use it on your own. it's not clear what dose is the best dose, if it does work, and also whether what you're buying really has the dose you think it does. because it's unregulated. and then the final thing is that you don't know what else is in that bottle. there could be pesticides. this could be other toxins that we just don't know about. >> and so the story repeats itself. parents left with new, even well founded hope, but little direction when it comes to cannabis and their children. marie made the tough decision to go public while the zartlers kept their secret for years. but that's about to change. >> did anybody say, don't do this? 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>> yes. >> who? >> everyone. >> family members? >> yeah. they all did. friends. >> because they were worried about the reaction? >> consequences, right. it was all about, you are going to end up in jail over this. >> that's when they decide to have christy film kara having a violent fit. and mark giving her cannabis. mark posted the video on facebook, and it goes viral. the story makes local and national news. >> on the front page on the sunday paper -- >> people take notice. >> somebody in our richardson town saw it on the hole news and called 911. >> and so does child protective services. >> it didn't take long. cps, knock, knock, knock, knock, and she says, i need to talk to my supervisor. we've established a cps case with you and you will be hearing from us again. >> the zartlers hire audrey morehead as their attorney. >> i often say that there are two agencies that you do not want to knock on your door. the first is the fbi. the second, cps. cps can petition for termination of parental rights, and what i described that as is hike the death penalty of family law. >> having a good day? >> morehead's primary goal is to keep kara at home with her parents. >> my strategy was to impress upon cps that, one, there was no imminent danger. >> i know you're happy. >> removing kara from the home would have resulted in her being place inside a facility. >> the zartlers had been given a choice. let kara continue to hurt herself or give her the medicine that works and risk her being taken away. >> that was the choice, and it had to be a very painful choice. and a difficult choice. this was not a decision that the zartlers took lightly. >> here you go. t i was prepared to go to court over whatever they did. >> it's a story we've heard before. families hg to risk everything to help their child. a story an er physician knows who believes in cannabis as a medicine, but also understands the gulf between stigma and science and is working to bridge that gap. >> the system was not taught in medical schools and in schools for health care professionals. the system is the system that provides the body homeostay sis and that could be the key behind why a lot of our disease processes are resistant to allow us to heal completely. >> what would you like to use medical marijuana for? >> for pain and appetite. >> she helps patients who qualify for medical cannabis in texas. and she is working with a lobbying organization that is targeting lawmakers. >> as the cannabis industry continues to grow, it runs the risk of heaving patients behind. so organizations like texans for safe access maintain the focus that patients should be the center. >> you're a conservative? >> i am a conservative. a republican. >> this is often seen as an issue that conservatives don't really get behind. >> that is true. but i'm also a data-driven person because of my health care background. >> she may seem like an unlikely champion for medical cannabis, but state representative stephanie click has been heeding the charge in texas. >> it's shown remarkable promise. >> a former nurse, she helped spearhead the compassionate use act in 2015, allowing patients with intractable epilepsy to use cbd as a medicine. >> it is very difficult for a family to live life normally when you have a child having 100 seizures a day. >> how hard was it to get that bill passed in 2015? >> very difficult. we were not sure we would get a hearing on it. >> four years later she helped expand the program to include qualifying conditions like multiple sclerosis, terminal cancer and, yes, autism. it was a big step forward, but the thc limits were still too low to help families hike the zartlers. they came to you and said this is our situation, what would you say to them? >> i would warn them what the ramifications are in the law. as a mother myself, i would move heaven and earth to make something better for my child if they were suffering. >> do you recognize -- >> this session click is pushing to add more health conditions and also raise the thc level from 0.5 to 5%. it's a bill the zartlers are watching very closely because it would allow them to legally give that higher thc dose to kara. >> every day that i give the medicine to my daughter is a potential day for me ending up with a felony. >> the fight to keep their daughter when we come back. 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all you have to do is pick up your phone, or go to loveshriners.org, and you'll be a part of something special too. thank you so much! hey, angie! you forgot your phone! hey lou! angie forget her phone again? yep. lou! mom said she could save up to $400 on her wireless bill by switching to xfinity internet and mobile. with nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and lou! on the most reliable network, lou! smart kid, bill. oh oh so true. and now, the moon christmas special. gotta go! take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes switching fast and easy this holiday season. when you're born and raised in san francisco, you grow up wanting to make a difference. that's why, at recology, we're proud to be 100% employee owned with local workers as diverse as san francisco. we built the city's recycling system from the ground up, helping to make san francisco the greenest big city in america but we couldn't do it without you. thank you, san francisco. gracias, san francisco. -thank you. -[ speaks native language ] let's keep making a difference together. all members voting. >> april 2021, austin, texas. 200 miles away in dallas, mark arrives at the state capitol with great hope. the legislature that meets every two years is voting on a new bill that would enhance access to medical cannabis from 5.5% 5% ten times stronger. the high thc is the best beneficial. child protective services allowed them to maintain care despite them using thc for autism, they feel like they're taking a risk every time they medicate their daughter. >> you're luck runs out unless we can get the law changed and that's what the representative's bill does. >> i call her the queen of cannabis. >> mark watches from the gallery. a debate on the floor he expected, the bill simply passes by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 134-12. >> one more. >> the bill still has to go to the senate and mark worries it won't receive the same support th there. >> we need more and more research. >> after decades of being ignored stigmatized, there is more research. there is the study in new york we first started following in 2019. it is slowly coming to fruition. in fact, we first met carlos and his mom two years ago. >> during that trial, he became more friendlier. >> i was more calm with it with me on the medication. and overall, it definitely did have a nice positive effect on me. >> do you think of yourself as a researcher? >> there are labs in california we showed you earlier. >> ready? >> answers from there are also slowly arriving. >> we're seeing some pretty oppressive changes. >> when you say seeing some impressive changes, what do you mean? >> children whose aggressive behavior was daily and it's gone away. i mean, gone away. a lot of the kids are more social. >> so what do we got? >> dinonikis. >> what's the purple one? >> he's easier to redirect. i can suggestion let's do this or this and he'll go okay, or yes mom. >> ezra is more patient, not hitting, not excitable. >> we have to share, okay? >> okay. >> able to attend school. >> ez, what are you making now? >> and at home, he's doing things joann never dreamed possible. like cooking and singing. >> i'm getting my baby back. i'm getting my boy back. we can set up the dinosaurs. >> but, you know, as we were talking there was something still nagging at me. >> do you ever think your many peck -- expectations are influencing how he's doing? >> yes and no. i don't know how he started changing or communicating and how he started being reasonable and how he stopped being aggressive. >> should i put her in the plants then? >> changes that have continued long after ezra long stopped taking the study drugs a year ago. >> he's had no regression. i don't think it's a cure. i think it will make it easier for him. you know, easier for him to live. >> interestingly, these were the s same kind of long term changes jay experienced. >> i don't know if i'd use the word heal but helping him become more himself. he has a right to be healthy, happy, to feel joy and this is certainly helped him do that and that's all i could ask for. >> i want to be very clear again, no one is saying there is a cure for autism. this isn't, either. but the idea that cannabis might not just treat the symptoms of autism but also help repair even protect the brain is something that came up again and again with the scientists i spoke to. >> i don't know. all i can tell you in terms of concrete things is that some of the kids who've shown an effect on whatever they're taking show it for several weeks after the study drug is taken away, and some seem to maintain some improvement but i don't know why that would be. i think it's certainly important to continue studying it to try to figure out how it works, if it does. >> until then, it still an uphill battle in texas. ultimately, the thc part of representative click's bill doomed when it got to the senate. >> patients and specific medical need. >> the levels only raised to 1%. >> my intent then and still is to have a truly medical program that follows the scientific data. people are concerned that this could lead into recreational abuse. >> the conservative lawmaker and grandmother to a boy with autism is not giving up. >> i'm trying to move the ball a little further down the road. >> human beings are inpatient esp especially, understandably when it comes to the care of our children but sometimes the roads are long. they take time. and there is no end in sight. and yet, they can still take immense joy they can now travel the road at all, no longer afraid about what lies ahead. >> it's just a miracle. it's just nothing short of a miracle for me. >> their story is out there now for the world to see. >> i know you're having fun. >> and they're at peace with that. they once believed they would lose their child. and now revel with their belief every day that instead, she was found with the help of a plant. >> the sun is setting. it's beautiful . this is "don lemon tonight." i'm laura coates in for don lemon. a huge victim tonight. a federal jury finding ghislaine maxwell the long-time come pan yin of jeffrey epstein guilty. she was found not guilty of enticing a minor to travel to