Can Weed Help Kids with Autism? | WEEDIQUETTE

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Published 2024-03-02
Autism is on the rise with no cause or cure in sight. Adrift in a void of medical data, more parents are breaking federal laws by giving their kids weed to treat the disorder.

This episode of Weediquette first aired on VICE TV in 2017. Weed laws in the US have since changed.

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All Comments (21)
  • 0:57 Autism rates have not increased by 600%. Rates of diagnosis have increased. Do you understand the distinction? Many Autists are never diagnosed.
  • @ChrisRGB
    Pot did help me when I was 15. Within a year I was working as a waiter, in 2 I could navigate college and really make friends, I could talk to people. I could explore the world without being overwhelmed. A decade later I was running a business and able to sell design work, 20 years later my career is stable and I lead a large team. I still can't handle Costco or IKEA, and sometimes I like to stay in. I am still completely obsessed about my interests, and I still don't make friends easily, but the difference is profound. I remember pieces of how I felt as a child before and after finding pot. The rest of the world came into focus. People became somehow more real. I started asking questions, and developing a picture of who they were. It's hard to describe but it's like I suddenly began thinking externally. Everyone around me noticed. I still struggle, but my life was forever changed.
  • Cannabis helps children with seizures immensely. Can make the incidence of seizures from 100s a day to only a couple. You’d do anything for your children to live comfortably— don’t judge until you’ve been in their shoes.
  • @SheilaMoraes_
    My mom's friend has an autistic child in severe conditions, the kid and the family have a really difficult life. At age of 3 they tried CBD oil, and now at age 6 the kid even enjoys going to school. She doesn't talk, doesn't look in the eye, but writes notes and uses drawing to communicate. She laughs and seems much better now. 🎉
  • The reason the number of diagnosed people with autism is increasing is because we've expanded the definition of autism, and because we've increased awareness of the disorder. I have Asperger's, which until recently was seen as distinct from autism, but is now seen as a part of the autism spectrum. The autism I have is relatively subtle, because I can understand irony and metaphors really well, and I probably wouldn't have been diagnosed a few decades ago.
  • @user-qk7en8pq1u
    on the point that the incidence of autism has increased over the past few decades, this is largely due to an increase in awareness of less obvious autistic symptoms in ondividuals with low/no care needs. In essence, people who don't necessarily seem autistic are now increasingly being diagnosed, which is unlikely to be a result of vaccines or age of parents and so on. As mentioned in passing, autism is a spectrum and not a monolith, and so it is very different for different people
  • @gf3473
    Autistic people were not interviewed, nor were their opinions and experiences considered in this video. Their absence was not explained by Vice. Perhaps Vice felt the opinions of autistics too insignificant to bother thinking about. Cannabis, may very well turn out to be useful for autistics, but that was also not fully explored. Did Vice seek to interview autistics using cannabis? If they did, perhaps their experiences were also too insignificant to fit in the film. This was about the ideas of mothers/parents of autistics. It was heartbreaking to hear one mother speak of her "losses", starting with her still living child! She did not loose her son, he is there. She lost her fantasy, her dream, her expectation, of the son she envisioned she will have. Who is not the son she has. Generally autism societies, and autism communities represent the interests of the parents, as seems to be the case with the activism/support group of these mothers. For some reason, autistics still are regarded as needing to be cured, among many such groups. I did not see ay alternate opinions explored here. Id have expected Vice to ask the autistics using cannabis if their hoping for a cure. This was disappointedly another film pedling misconceptions and ignoring the knowledge, and experiences of autistics themselves.
  • @maquino
    My 7 year old son was diagnosed 2 years ago with a rare genetic disorder KCNB1 a type of encephalopathy that causes seizures (60 to 100 per day) and is resistant to conventional seizure medications. On the 31st of december 2023, my son had around 70 seizures, out of desperation i started giving him small dosages of CBD oil (without thc). 48 hours later seizures stopped, we are almost 3 months seizure free.🙏🏻🙏🏻
  • Jesus--that one mom could help her kid by just reducing her volume. She keeps high-pitch-screaming in his face @19:35-36, and my autism was being triggered by it from a distance with the volume turned down. His nervous system is influenced by her pitch and dynamics too, and even if it's meant as an expression of joy/enthusiasm, it stuns/overwhelms the nervous system and kicks it into a higher gear. If you want to help temper someone's nervous system, temper yours before you engage and you'll have far less damage control to do on the back end. "Indoor voice" is what they used to call it; they could practice it together and it could be an amazing bonding experience to simultaneously temper. I love that these moms are willing to 'take risks' to break these laws when they have the chance to help their children. I can't imagine such a thing in the 80s. It's hard to be an unconventional parent--you can be ostracised easily for such 'socially conspicuous' infractions.
  • As a late diagnosed autistic person, the reason more people are being diagnosed is because we are now more aware of what warrants an autism diagnosis. People who weren't diagnosed back 50 yrs ago are now being diagnosed today. The diagnosis has changed in recent times and with more awareness, and more understanding of what that means, people who flew under the radar most of their life are now able to get a diagnosis. Females also generally present different than males. 50 years ago the understanding of what autism was was very poorly understood and many people who were diagnosed as "schizophrenic" were autistic. In fact, many different diagnoses were lumped into schizophrenia. On the other hand, autistic people (autism isn't something you just magically "get") may have been suffering most of their lives undiagnosed, only to find out they weren't a freak, broken, or a weirdo (as society loves to label us) but were in fact autistic. Autistic people don't want a cure. We would like to manage our symptoms better, yes. We should be focused on helping and accommodating autistic people..not trying to cure them. Also, talk to autistic people and not just the parents of autistic children. We exist, too. And it is a spectrum, so their are people who need life long care and their are people who can live independently but still need a support system. It's genetic, it's not caused my vaccines, or sugar, or whatever BS people like to believe. These claims are proven false and only do more harm than good. Try to accommodate autistic people instead of curing them. All I ever wanted to know was what was "wrong" with me and finding out I was autistic changed everything. Also, Autism Speaks sucks.
  • @Timboyxxx
    How crazy and dumb is that a mother has to BREAK the law to help her child live a comfortable life... All because the governments decided marijuana is illegal.... Yet one of the worst drugs, alcohol is completely legal.
  • 3:13 Saying that Autism “destroyed our family” is straight out of Autism Speaks’s horrible “I am Autism” commercial. Don’t blame your child’s neurotype for the end of your marriage.
  • @pallasydoor7116
    And the comments already suck. I understand people not wanting to for there personal reasons but the lack of open minds is mind boggling
  • 4:09 It’s just horrible how the video editor timed “psychotic episodes, suicidal thoughts” with the child happily stimming in the background, as though stimming is violent and needs to be suppressed.
  • @BunnyTheCat
    When I worked at a “severe” special needs school there were a few kids who’d have their “special gummy” before coming to school, staff were all cool with it since it seriously helped some of them calm down and regulate. Even non verbal folks deserve to feel calm and relaxed and cbd/thc can help immensely with that. Ofc its still a drug and needs to be dosed appropriately but it can be life changing for some of us
  • @peterdarker1
    I remember watching this when it was first aired and a LOTTTTTTT has changed all around on these topics in the last 7 years. If there's no follow-up to report on this, I'm not sure why it's being posted. Don't leave us hangin,' Vice!
  • “Autism rates growing” is an insane way to report better detection of autism. I’m a psychologist who has autism and specializes in treating autism, which we know to be primarily (if not entirely) influenced by genetics. Every client I’ve ever worked with has autistic family members. The brain is detectably autistic at 6 months and we’re sure you can’t get it from vaccines lol. Love this for weed tho
  • Could you @VICE please make a followup on these families, so we can see if and how it has helped after 7 years? ❤❤❤