 mechanism that we think is important." There is reason to be optimistic. This new CBDV-based drug is similar to one that's already been approved by the FDA to treat a severe form of epilepsy that shares some of the same symptoms that Dr. Hollander is studying. This new research could help cement what has largely been anecdotal support of using cannabis to treat autism. Cannabis was once seen as something which is completely recreational, has been very heavily sort of stigmatized over the years and it's only very recently in our modern day that people have been looking into researching and using cannabis for its medicinal purposes. Today we're going to have a look at a video called Cannabis as a Natural Treatment for Autism. Not the most appetizing title be it. I think it'd be quite interesting to perhaps have a little bit of an insight into how people are using cannabis I suppose in terms of autistic people. Let's go for it. Nate started taking medication for autism when he was around five years old. As Nate was getting into high school the aggression levels just really started spiraling out of control. He randomly started running into other classrooms, punching people for nothing. It took four adult men and handcuffs to bring him down to the ground, cuff him and restrain him. At that time he was taking 18 pills. Yeah that sounds like an autism meltdown for me. I think some people when they come into like particularly high school experiences or secondary school as we say in the UK like definitely a lot more sensory provoking than it was or at least in my experiences personally. But if you haven't already watched the podcast of myself with Miyabi I highly recommend either checking that out after we watched this video because Miyabi and me were talking specifically I think of perhaps people who have relatively lower support needs and I think this individual perhaps has relatively sort of high support needs so it'd be interesting to see what their experiences of it is like. Although I do want to put a big caveat there and say that it's going to be from obviously the lens of the parents. So perhaps not particularly their experience I suppose but the parents experience. Pills every single day and it wasn't even helping. I started researching the medical marijuana states. We were able to come to California. I remembered seeing like the big neon cannabis leaf in the window and like well that's got to be where we have to go. Why don't you just tell me a little bit about your family? Marijuana. My name is Jenny Mae. I have three sons on the autism spectrum. Each child is of course so different like any other child and as far as them being on the spectrum Nathan is what is considered to be at the very severe end and rather than trying to find the right medication they just gave more and more and more of it and that was really the only solution they had. I did not. Yeah the wedding is not is not incredibly I can imagine not the best for you guys but I think what she's trying to say is that he probably has quite quite high support needs. I don't think the autism spectrum is necessarily this ASD one two and three thing. I think it's sort of a separate sort of label that is based on what kind of functioning they need. Well why does she go straight to part? I think that they've had medications as she said. I don't know what kind of medications are giving him because as far as I know I don't think there's many like I don't think you can get medications for autism you know. Like maybe things related to like the comorbidities like depression and anxiety maybe maybe something related to like mood stabilizing is that what they do? I haven't really looked into it to be honest. Does anyone have any ideas? I do know I have seen some research around particularly around like oxytocin mediators they did like a nasal spray which apparently alleviated some of like the social symptoms that they had. Yeah that is my exams on the old wacky backie. I also passed nice. I don't want him being chemically restrained in a bed you know being taken care of by strangers. Hmm sorry. I had come across this little video clip of a young boy who. Aaron says sometimes these sedatives if there's aggression. Yeah that's that's what I imagine. That's what I'm at. That's what I thought yeah. Who was just repeatedly punching himself in the head. 11 year old Alex Eccles is severely autistic. His self-destructive behavior brought on by and it caught my attention because it was something that Nate had done. His parents were talking about giving some kind of an oil. I was confused because it sounded like it was some kind of a marijuana derivative and I was actually shocked and maybe even a little bit disgusted. And after a few months of treatment the Eccles say they saw a dramatic improvement. Within just a few minutes of this boy taking the oil orally he was smiling and he was calm and he wasn't hurting himself anymore and I'm like wait what what just happened there. I watched it a few more times. This is definitely an interesting kind of thing isn't it like using medication like even even if it's something something kind of you know that a lot of people sort of tout us as being quite beneficial to autistic people from from other autistic adults like it's still a very strange thing to like medicate autism. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't really sit right with me. They should certainly try more than one medication and watch how it responds. It's a lousy way to find out what works but surely better than increasing doses of the same thing. It makes you chilled. I definitely self-prescribed pot and I think I'm right about it but it's not as good when I ever do it. Yeah I mean I think anything in excess of what you need is probably like not a good idea but this I mean usually when when medical stuff like this is done there is usually like a prescribed dose you know it's not like used for recreational purposes in that sense but I mean like I think one of the arguments a lot of like activists for like cannabis use like even in a recreational setting like it doesn't lead to people increasing aggressiveness like sometimes it can lead to like anxiety and paranoia and I think it among a select group of people it can sort of initiate any sort of pre-existing schizo related disorders but yeah I mean let's get watching. Times and I was completely shocked and desperate. At that point Jenny and her family just moved from Wisconsin to Missouri. Two states were getting pot legally for really any reason is super difficult but particularly medical cannabis to treat autism. Currently only 12 states include autism as a qualifying condition. Five other states in the District of Columbia are considered autism friendly meaning doctors can recommend medical cannabis for debilitating conditions so that leaves 33 states where you can't access medical cannabis to treat autism at all. I was raised in the Nancy Reagan just say no era. Getting the kid's stone clearly work which is worth something I guess. I don't think it's kind of in that sense I don't think that's the like I mean I technically yes I suppose you're right Baxman but you know I just it's the whole thing about medicating for autism like I prefer if it was more about like medicating like anger issues or like something like that it's just like medicating autism it just it seems a very strange way of talking about it. I suppose when it comes to legislation perhaps it's a bit sort of more impactful to allow autistic people to receive said medication but the language is just getting me. Know the drugs and say yes to life. I would have never in my life considered this to be a medicine but I basically told my husband we have to try that. Like most illicit drugs the scientific and medical research of marijuana has been challenging but the tide appears to be turning. The first large scale clinical trial is underway at Montefiri Medical Center in New York City and it may be the key to unlocking access to treatment for children with autism nationwide. Dr. Eric Hollander is leading that study. I've been involved in research developing new therapies new treatments and autism spectrum disorders for about 30 years and there's a big need to develop treatments for the core symptoms of autism. This study focuses on a new compound called Cannabidivarian or CBDV it's an extract from the cannabis plant similar to CBD. It doesn't include THC the psychoactive drug that gets you high and what Jenny uses to treat need but it's the first step in studying cannabis to treat autism. This particular cannabinoid has effects on some of the underlying mechanisms that we think are central to autism the problem behaviors and disruptive behaviors and also in some of the compulsive behaviors or repetitive behaviors or perseverative behaviors so it gets at a key Yeah I don't think we need treatments for repetitive behaviors mate. Like it's a really weird video for me to watch because I don't agree with the premise but I sort of you know I think it's good to have an open mind when it comes to helping people you know. I take mood stabilizer antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. I have low spondies but comorbid conditions I don't think they are meds for autism. Exactly just what I'm talking about Pieta. I hope I'm saying that right. Hello like C. Okay that's what I thought I didn't think that oil got you high. I have to be honest I was under the assumption that it was. I was under that assumption. If they had medical grandeur on the NHS I wouldn't say no. No you can't get it medically in the UK. You need to have first shown that medication does not work in treating you however. Yeah it's interesting. I've been understanding trying to work out what exactly these mechanisms of like challenging behavior that they're necessarily talking about because I don't necessarily think that's like you know that it's the premise of treating autism that I don't agree with you know. Are they tackling from the angle of suppressing stimming and suppressing self-harm behaviors? Yeah because if they're challenging it from the angle of tackling it from the angle of suppressing stimming I'm not too happy about that to be honest. I think the way that he's wording it is like they're trying to remove challenging behaviors in order to make the child sort of more amenable but I think there's also that an aspect of like improving the child's well-being as well which I can agree with. I just don't think that saying treating autism is like necessarily the right way of wording it you know perhaps improving the life quality of an autistic person that would probably be a better way of wording it. Kind of just helps me not my addiction problem rather alcohol. Interesting. Help me socialize and sleep bad sleep but sleep. Yeah I've heard stuff like that as well. The mechanism that we think is important. There is reason to be optimistic. This new CBDV based drug is similar to one that's already been approved by the FDA to treat a severe form of epilepsy that shares some of the same symptoms that Dr. Hollander is studying. This new research could help cement what has largely been anecdotal support of using cannabis to treat autism but while that research is ongoing parents like Jenny are moving to states that have more lax marijuana laws. For Jenny and her family that meant packing up everything and moving all the way across the country. That decision may sound extreme but for Jenny and Nate it's been worth it. Their lives have been transformed since first visiting at a dispensary. We got home and he took a hit immediately. We got this huh? Okay. And with him not even five minutes it was just like a light switch. He was happy and just kind of looking around like he had never seen the world in that way and he was smiling and looking at me and I just knew right away because nothing acted that quickly or that positively ever. Jenny has learned a lot since moving her family out to California. There she joined forces with fellow mom Rhonda to start the non-profit whole plan access for autism. Now it's a team of moms dedicating their lives to helping other families navigate the challenges that come with getting cannabis for their autistic kids. I feel like we get a lot of people that come to our booth. Someone in their lives has been touched by autism and they don't know that this is an option Oftentimes we get people that come to us after the event, they email us or they find us on social media and they want to learn and that's kind of a group. Well I really do want to highlight that I'm not necessarily like when I question the aspect of treating autism. I'm not criticizing like the doctors or the actual parent that you know they're trying to remove autism from their kids. I don't think that's not the angle that I'm trying to take. It's more like I suppose it's just the wording if I'm being honest. I'd prefer if it wasn't treating autism, probably like helping autistic people probably be better. But the actual initiative and what they're talking about is something that I definitely do agree with. I think that there should be access to stuff like that. Especially when it comes to CBD, CBD variants, non-psychoactive stuff. It seems like a very silly thing to deny people from having, if it really really helps them improve the quality of life. Danielle says, I always feel like I say things on purpose, not in a mean way. People always take it as if I'm being rude and they give me attitude. I feel like I did something wrong. Do you mean now, Danielle? I mean I don't feel anyone else get treated like a child or told. They look like a kid and that's how old they are by strangers. I always didn't get as hell annoying. It drives me nuts. Yeah that's the infantilization thing. Anti-epileptics are part of a treatment for BP. Are we sure he wasn't high? I don't know. They seem to have a very sort of noticeable effect from what she was talking about. We decided to take a drive out to Joshua Tree. I had him vape and take an edible right before we left the house. He saw that I was taking pictures and most of the other pictures that I've ever taken in his life, it was kind of a vacant stare. He wouldn't really look, he wouldn't really smile and he ran over in front of me and sat down. He sat there and he posed for picture like everybody else would in a situation like that and I'm like that's it. That's basically his birth picture. You shouldn't have to go... I feel like what they're actually treating here is just generalized anxiety and over-stimulation. It makes sense. Perhaps someone might be a little bit less lucid if they are like constantly over-stimulated and they have like that bodily sort of aching feeling of anxiety that you get with generalized anxiety. They definitely make sense 100%. I don't think it's necessarily making him less autistic than I think that's the wrong kind of characterization to make. To go through the whole gamut of medications and side effects and long-term consequences of some of those side effects in order to get to it, just look at cannabis as another tool in your tool bill to try. Thanks for watching. For more dope science content, check out our website and subscribe to Freethink for more great videos every week. That was Freethinks Cannabis as a National Treatment for Autism. Definitely seems like a good sort of step in the right direction I think for improving the life quality of autistic people. I've heard like an almost overwhelming amount of positive regard and also some people who have sort of negative regard for the use of it in terms of like improving life quality, sort of counteracting some of the common sort of comorbidities that autistic people can experience, particularly anxiety. Again, the wording, you know, I have to go back to the wording, the wording of what they're actually doing I think could be improved, but I think the general sentiment of improving the life quality of individuals I think is a very good thing.