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
now more than a dozen states have approved cannabis to treat autism and for some it s the jackpot. ready? time for mommy time for drops. but for others, it is a gamble. every day i give the medicine to my daughter is a potential day for me ending up with a felon. 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 and autism. you re about to see kara s life. i want to warn you this will be hard to watch. kara has severe autism. kara, stop it. stop. reporter: 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. 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 children with severe autism. for three decades she was the chief
Being aggressive. he eats plants. should i put her in the plants then? changes that have continued long after ezra stopped taking the study drugs almost a year ago. he has had no regression whatsoever. i don t think it is a cure. i think it is just going to make it easier for him. you know? easier for him to live. interestingly these were the same kind of long term changes jay also 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, to be happy, to feel joy. and this is certainly helping him do that. i want to be very clear again no one is saying this is a cure for autism. but the idea of cannabis might not just treat the symptoms of autism but also help repair, even protect the brain, is
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.