Why I gave marijuana to my autistic child

I think this is probably a symptom of what I described above, rather than the root cause. Read Temple Grandin's book Animals in Translation if you want a better account.

The book is written by an autistic woman who discovered that she has a really uncanny ability to understand animals. Basically she is able to see which stimuli are causing cattle and other animals to freak out, and the way she is able to do this is because her perception of the world is altered in a way that makes these stimuli (and their effects) more salient. For example, she will realize that the reason the cow won't move is because it sees a shadow, which no one else can recognize even though it's right in front of them. Apparently both autistics and animals are set off by some of the same things, because they don't have the natural ability to generalize phenomena. (So if they see a shadow, it's like a completely new thing to them each time and it scares them.) Although it seems like this particular author has learned to intellectualize that ability, so as an adult she has learned to get around the fact that the part of her brain which is supposed to do that isn't working. Anyway I'd really recommend this book, it sounds really flaky but it's incredibly intellectually interesting, and has so many implications for so many things it's ridiculous.

(Note that there may be several types of autism, which science hasn't yet differentiated because people could be having different subjective experiences, while the behavioral outcomes are the same. I'm not saying this is the case, it's just a possibility that has to be kept in mind, because people as introspective and articulate as Grandin are rare so understanding in these areas moves slowly.)

If you're contacting practitioners who already prescribe MM they're unlikely to speak out against the study, besides you could force non-disclosure agreements on participants. It's kind of morally-grey, but if there's big enough concern about getting shut down then you'll get enough people willing to sign an NDA in the chance they might be able to help their child.

This wouldn't be the sort of study you stick an ad for in the sunday paper.

IIRC it doesn't matter what state the research is done in once the study gets approval from the federal government, which is needed anyway. That's why they're allowed to do psilocybin research at Johns Hopkins. (Which they still need about 70 more volunteers for; if anyone wants to participate, check out csp.org.)

As far as having to happen in a state w/ medical marijuana, I also don't think that's necessarily true. Human research on controlled substances is pretty common, but requires the researcher to get past a lot of DEA & institutional HSRC paperwork. That's how the research that supports medical marijuana was performed in the first place.

Amazingly, a google scholar search for marijuana (or thc) and autism turns up nothing relevant. Really? It's amazing how little we know.

Here I might add, for no particular reason except human interest, that I have never in my life consumed marijuana.

I'm not saying that everyone should do drugs, certainly not, but if you don't at least take the time to learn about this stuff then you're cheating yourself out of a big piece of the human experience.

Are you saying all hackers are liberals?

It didn't work. It drugged him to be more passive, but had no effect on the actual autism.

Seemed like a plus to the parents though, and from what they write the kid was happier. But it was not a cure at all.

Next we'll hear about ADHD being treated this way.

Drugs to cure every ill.

Come back in 300 days, you might have a valid point by then!

I didn't say it's not hacker news. I said I don't see what it's got to do with a site ostensibly titled "Hacker News". I think that's a fair question, isn't it?