# Medicinal Marijuana and the 7 Year Old **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595 "2012-11-30T18:36:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/1 "2012-11-30T18:36:09Z")
[Story here.](http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/28/is-medical-marijuana-safe-for-children/) A brief background from the story: > [@](#): > > Mykayla was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in July. Against her doctor’s wishes, her mother, Erin Purchase, began giving her lime-flavored capsules filled with cannabis oil after she had a poor response to her initial chemotherapy treatment. Her doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant, but while she was taking the medical marijuana, she went into remission in August. She continues to rely on cannabis to ease pain and nausea and her mother plans to continue giving her the drug during the additional two to three years of chemotherapy she still faces. This story has been all over the news for the last few day and it seems that opinions are all over the map. I’m not a parent, but if my child had some truly horrific and painful disease, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d do whatever it took to relieve their pain. Further, while I’m neither a scientist nor a doctor, I have trouble believing that marijuana (capsules, no less) are more harmful to this child than traditional pain meds (opiates). I can’t fathom a justification for favoring opiates over marijuana for pain management for this kid, but that’s why I’m here. I’d love to hear what Dopers think is right in this case! ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/2 "2012-11-30T19:16:52Z")
Unless someone points at a study showing that marijuana in pill form is more harmful than other forms of long-term pain management, any uproar is just Reefer Madness paranoia at its worst. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/3 "2012-11-30T21:03:06Z")
I don’t really see a problem here. When used as a drug (that is, a pharmaceutical one :p) marijuana is a drug like any other. Can patients get high on MJ pills ? Well, probably, yes. But then, so can they on oxy, vicodin, codeine and so forth. Does MJ have side effects ? Possibly, up to and including heightened mac-and-cheese sensibility, but AFAIK they’re far milder than the aforementioned - I’d balk at Vicodin being prescribed to such a small child, for example. That shit is nasty, and I was quite surprised to learn that a friend of mine got prescribed Vicos after very minor dental work. WTH, America ? But I digress, let’s move on. Is medicinal MJ addictive ? Possibly (although I have my doubts), but once again pretty much _every_ painkiller is addictive - because they happen to numb pain, dontcherknow. That on top of any physiological addiction mechanisms they may enable. Seems to me that it’s only controversial because boogaboogabooga marijuana. Let the makers rebrand it as Xonaton or Pacidex or Zenoxyl and nobody would raise an eyebrow. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/4 "2012-11-30T21:15:30Z")
So she can take powerful and dangerous chemotherapy drugs to save her life, but taking cannabis oil to treat her nausea is horrible? Please. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/5 "2012-11-30T21:24:07Z")
Seems absolutely reasonable and acceptable to me. The only thing that is a bit of a red flag (maybe, based on reading between the lines of the article) it is possible her mum is actually relying on it to actually treat the cancer itself. Which would _not_ be ok. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/6 "2012-11-30T21:30:54Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > The only thing that is a bit of a red flag (maybe, based on reading between the lines of the article) it is possible her mum is actually relying on it to actually treat the cancer itself. Which would _not_ be ok. Her mother feels cannabis oil has some anti-cancer properties, and I don’t know if there have been formal studies but she is not alone in that view. Either way, she’s not taking cannabis oil in lieu of medical treatment. She’s got a lot of chemotherapy ahead of her. Her parents are not going ahead with a bone marrow transplant right now, but that’s because she’s in remission, not because they just think medical marijuana is better. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/7 "2012-11-30T21:36:21Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Seems absolutely reasonable and acceptable to me. > > The only thing that is a bit of a red flag (maybe, based on reading between the lines of the article) it is possible her mum is actually relying on it to actually treat the cancer itself. Which would _not_ be ok. This. Sound to me like the mom thinks the marijuana put her in remission and isn’t listening to her doctor. I don’t think the is anything wrong with giving a kid marijuana when there are no other options and a doctor recommends it. I know it’s legal in her state - and would like to know if fear of (federal) legal problems contributed to why the doc doesn’t recommend it. If so - it is more complicated. In general - people should listen to their doctors. People seem to think marijuana is this magical natural substance. Maybe it is, but this belief seems to be based more off of wanting to believe than actual science. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/8 "2012-11-30T21:36:51Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > So she can take powerful and dangerous chemotherapy drugs to save her life, but taking cannabis oil to treat her nausea is horrible? Please. As long as cannabis oil actually treats her nausea, I don’t have a problem with it; not that if I did, the family would care. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/9 "2012-11-30T21:39:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Her parents are not going ahead with a bone marrow transplant right now, but that’s because she’s in remission, not because they just think medical marijuana is better. Well, you can’t say based on the information in the article. But one way to interpret “Her doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant, but while she was taking the medical marijuana, she went into remission in August.” is that doctors recommended further conventional treatment, but her parents decided it was being cured by the marijuana pills so decided not to. That would not be cool. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/10 "2012-11-30T21:43:42Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > one way to interpret “Her doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant, but while she was taking the medical marijuana, she went into remission in August.” is that doctors recommended further conventional treatment, but her parents decided it was being cured by the marijuana pills so decided not to. That would not be cool. You’re reading between the lines while missing the plain text. The article says she will be receiving chemotherapy for another two to three years. So she’s not taking cannabis oil instead of treatment. It does say that they have decided against the bone marrow transplant at least for now, but it does not say they’re doing that because they think the cannabis fixed everything. I understand why people are concerned about the possibility of woo, but I’m not seeing the woo here. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/11 "2012-11-30T21:44:08Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Well, you can’t say based on the information in the article. But one way to interpret “Her doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant, but while she was taking the medical marijuana, she went into remission in August.” is that doctors recommended further conventional treatment, but her parents decided it was being cured by the marijuana pills so decided not to. That would not be cool. That is what I took from it, but not sure. According to: [http://abcnews.go.com/Health/medical-marijuana-year-sparks-controversy/t/story?id=17814636](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/medical-marijuana-year-sparks-controversy/t/story?id=17814636) The mom decided to start using Marijuana three days after she was diagnosed too. The mom takes it as well - and thinks it cured her of something that docs say it didn’t. She also said (can’t copy and paste on my iPad from abcnews) something along the lines of “I don’t want to hear a doctors opinion on Marijuana - it is our daughter and we will do what we want”. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/12 "2012-11-30T21:46:01Z")
I don’t think we should assume the mother thinks the medical marijuana brought on the remission. She’s in chemotherapy, that’s why she’s taking the pills. It’s reasonable to assume her mother knows the chemo is the reason for remission. ETA: After reading the linked article I can see the mother may have some weird ideas, but it doesn’t really change the situation. The pills were prescribed to counter the effects of chemo. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/13 "2012-11-30T21:47:33Z")
Oh the ABC article does say the transplant was no longer necessary and so I take that part back, but still think the mom is doing this against medical advise and with no understanding of science. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/14 "2012-11-30T21:49:28Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I don’t think we should assume the mother thinks the medical marijuana brought on the remission. She’s in chemotherapy, that’s why she’s taking the pills. It’s reasonable to assume her mother knows the chemo is the reason for remission. The article seems to suggest the mom did: > [@](#): > > Purchase, believes that certain components in marijuana, which showanti-cancer activity in many early studies, helped spark the remission. > > Read more: [Is Medical Marijuana Safe for Children? | TIME.com](http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/28/is-medical-marijuana-safe-for-children/#ixzz2DkFtBDrw) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/15 "2012-11-30T21:49:42Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I don’t think we should assume the mother thinks the medical marijuana brought on the remission. She’s in chemotherapy, that’s why she’s taking the pills. It’s reasonable to assume her mother knows the chemo is the reason for remission. In the ABC piece the mother does say she thinks the cannabis oil is helping. But to my outsider non-doctor eyes it does look like her treatment is appropriate: they didn’t say “we don’t need real treatment, we have weed.” She is getting the recommended chemotherapy and they’re not doing the bone marrow transplant because her disease is in remission, not because they’d rather give her cannabis oil. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/16 "2012-11-30T21:56:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > In the ABC piece the mother does say she thinks the cannabis oil is helping. But to my outsider non-doctor eyes it does look like her treatment is appropriate: they didn’t say “we don’t need real treatment, we have weed.” She is getting the recommended chemotherapy and they’re not doing the bone marrow transplant because her disease is in remission, not because they’d rather give her cannabis oil. You can see above that I did get to read the article, and I agree that the treatment is still reasonable for the circumstances independent of the mother’s ideas. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/17 "2012-11-30T21:58:42Z")
nm, duplicate post ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/18 "2012-11-30T22:14:43Z")
There are two ways to interpret this: A - Child has cancer. Mother gives child cannabis for its anti-nausea properties, but otherwise does treats cancer exactly as recommended by her doctor. The child goes into remission, mother chooses to credit cannabis. B - Child has cancer. Mother gives child cannabis because she thinks it will cure cancer. Because of this belief she refuses bone marrow transplant. She now claims cancer is in remission because of cannabis. A seems quite reasonable and a perfectly suitable way to use medical marijuana. B would be really terrible and risks a child’s life by quack medicine. Based on the article in the OP either could be the case but the ABC article linked above seems support A. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/19 "2012-12-01T00:03:01Z")
Who cares what the mother thinks? What they’re doing now is working. When it stops working I’m sure the mother will seek more conventional treatments to help her daughter. I could see criticizing the mother if her daughter’s condition was getting worse and she ignored the doctor and continued with the cannabis treatment, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595/20 "2012-12-01T00:57:27Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > [Story here.](http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/28/is-medical-marijuana-safe-for-children/) > > A brief background from the story: > This story has been all over the news for the last few day and it seems that opinions are all over the map. > > I’m not a parent, but if my child had some truly horrific and painful disease, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d do whatever it took to relieve their pain. Further, while I’m neither a scientist nor a doctor, I have trouble believing that marijuana (capsules, no less) are more harmful to this child than traditional pain meds (opiates). I can’t fathom a justification for favoring opiates over marijuana for pain management for this kid, but that’s why I’m here. > > I’d love to hear what Dopers think is right in this case! There have been a few studies that seem to indicate that if the kid in question is disposed towards schizophrenia that marijuana can possibly trigger the development. Schizophrenia is the nasty gift that keeps on giving. You can get a kid off morphine and painkillers, but you can’t wean them off schizophrenia. As fond as I am of weed, _for adults_ if I had a kid in pain, I would be pushing the doc to give it antiemetics and painkillers that work, not weed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medicinal-marijuana-and-the-7-year-old/642595.md?page=2)