ADHD is a simple-minded single epithet for a worm-mine of syndromes and complexes. Credible that cannabis helps certain patients if not others. Denial of cannabis over the years has boosted sales of Ritalin and, secondarily, of medications needed for the mal-effects of Ritalin. The "attention, memory and concentration" some want to protect is code-language for the docile attentiveness and mental passivity many teachers like because it makes students more manageable.

While the link between ADHD as an early presentation of psychosis remains an area of consideration, why would you give a drug to a child that can trigger such an onset. Psychosis typically will be emerging in the latter stages of adolescence so the timing of this marijuana administration fails to make sense on so many clinical levels. I wonder what the view of the California Medical Association might be?

I have some experience treating adolscents and adults with ADHD. I have heard from a few that were convincing in their self-observations that the use of marijuana actually improved impairments attributed to their ADHD. These included improved academic and occupational performance. I think one problem with the medical use of any psychoactive substance is consistent dosing at the most therapeutic level. Most patients don't get enough information, education and treatment support to develop the insight and discipline to do this. Who is at fault for this?

It sometimes seems that anything and everything is OK in the Bay area. Without proper study, consideration of side effects and risks, these physicians fall into the local mode quite well.

1. Bill: proper study of side effects and risks has been prevented through the years by legalistic intimidation from governments wedded financially to the tobackgo interest. 2. mcnabbott has it right, patients are badly advised on how to take the substance-- the NIDA itself furnishes cannabis to patients in the form of 900-mg. hot burning overdose cigarettes. What about a vaporizer, screened 25-mg. one-hitter, or e-cigarette with cannabinoid formula?

If you would like to learn more about the many medical uses of cannabis, please run a search on "Granny Storm Crow's list- July 2009". It is a collection of hundreds of links to scientific studies and articles about cannabis. Please educate yourself about this wonderful healing herb. I work in education and have personally seen the positive difference it can make with ADHD. For one young man, it made the difference between passing and failing 7th grade. With cannabis, he was able to concentrate and complete assignments. In some cases, cannabis use, even at such a young age, is warranted.

Peter, why would you give a drug to a child that causes insomnia, lack of appetite, irritability, depression, seizures, psychosis and potential sudden death? (or haven't you read about the potential side-effect of ritalin?) BILLMD, for those who think more research should be done on marijuana in treating illness, I say, get off your duffs and insist the the US Govt. change marijuana from Schedule I, because its present CSA classification precludes just the rigorous studies you say are necessary.

ADHD is an actual condition characterized by inatteniveness, impulsivity and hyperactivity. There are many effective treatments available. Perhaps Cannibis should be studied but at present has not been proven to be either safe or effective and should not be prescribed. Kevin M. Passer, M.D. Board Certified Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist & Addictionologist

Marijuana cannot be "prescribed" because it is defined by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 as a Schedule I drug. For the same reason, marijuana cannot even be "studied" in the sense of conducting large-scale clinical trials of its safety and efficacy. So what can a clinician do when the treatments for ADHD that are available prove to be ineffective, unavailable, or the cause undesirable side effects? Recommending the compassionate use of marijuana for the treatment of ADHD, even in children, is the moral and ethical course of action in these cases.

I have seen many patients who were first prescribed ritalin at age 14 oe 15 for attention problems and falling grades, but the attention problems did not start until after they smoked marijuana. Most of my patients who give up marijuana have improved grades and often their attention improves. I encourage physicians to test urines for marijuana before starting stimulents. Often the attention problems will correct itself. I agree we need well controlled studies. I am tired of seeing young adults who smoke marijuana also take ritalin.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned diet as an issue with ADHD. There are some foods that can trigger hyperactivity such as cola products or red dyes. One of my cousins had to stay away from foods such as colas, a Wendy's Frosty or Bazooka bubble gum. If he used any of those products, he would become hyperactive. Surely eating a healthier diet (if this is the case) would be a far better alternative than marijuana.

I don't think we can even recommend the compassionate use of marijuana when we do not have clinical evidence of its impact, positive or negative, in treating ADHD. As with any medication in the experimental stage, it is considered unethical to conduct research testing on children under 18 y.o. Catch-22: we should not be offering many of the available medication therapies to children because we cannot know the effectiveness on children (vs. adults). So few psychotropic meds have been authorized by the FDA and the rest are black labeled against use with children, mostly because we simply do not have the research with children. We as a society have yet to reach a solution for this dilemma. -- I have known many teens with ADHD who used marijuana and several, but not all, functioned better prior to getting busted for pot and having to stop using it. But with many others with ADHD, the use or non-use of pot did not seem to make a difference in their functioning. There is just so much more that needs to be learned before we can make a professional and/or social judgment about the treatment of ADHD with medical marijuana. The moral and ethical dilemma then falls to the treating physician, who we can only hope is providing proper monitoring, reassessment, and keeping the child's best interest the priority.

It's hard for me to believe that my learned colleagues in the medical profession would rather prescribe amphetamines to children than marijuana. The risks associated with the latter seem far less than the risks associated with the former (despite FDA approval). After all, DEA Judge Francis Young called marijuana "the safest therapeutically active substance known to man." This is especially true when the parents agree to a compassionate trial of marijuana for their children. These trials are only available in California, the only one of the 13 medical marijuana states that allow physicians to recommend marijuana for any condition for which it might be useful. Everywhere else in the country marijuana use for ADHD is still subject to marijuana's most serious adverse effect--a lengthy prison sentence.

This will be a three part comment- I know it���s long but what I have to say is worth the time it takes to read it if you have any real interest/stake in this issue. I have been taking dexedrine spansule (the strongest drug available to treat adhd) for 10 years now, and though the drug makes it so I can focus, the side effects are close to unbearable. Insomnia, lack of appetite- which leads to nausea and acid reflux, and new symptoms as the drug leaves my system 6 hours later- debilitating headaches with intense pressure behind my eyes, loss of sex drive, and worst of all an almost inability to control mood- when coming down off the drug something that simply would've been annoying becomes enraging. You feel powerless to control your own thoughts. When my doctor suggested medicine to counter these side effects the plan would have forced me to take 5 additional pills every day! Imatrex for the migraines, prilosec for the acid reflux, hormones for the lack of sex drive, mood stabilizers for the mood swings, and ambien for the insomnia! Not only is that financially crazy, but I am already putting enough drugs into my system in order to realign my brain chemistry, I was not about to override my system with 5 additional drugs. So i chose to suck it up and suffer through it...it never got easy but after 10 years I got used to it.

And then I saw an article explaining the high use of marijuana in adhd teenagers. The parts of the brain that are overstimulated in people with adhd are the same parts of the brain that are slowed down in marijuana users, so while regular people may become forgetful or disorganized when they smoke pot, many adhd people find that the use of marijuana balances them out, instead of feeling frenzied and disorganized to begin with, they feel calm structured. Studies have shown that long term pot smoking in adhd adults leads to a lowering in activity in the same parts of the brain where adhd people exhibit overactive synapse firing. It is only logical that people with adhd would feel more capable after prolonged use of marijuana. After reading this article I decided to try marijuana and immediately I discovered something that the article didn't mention....by smoking marijuana I effectively negated all the horrible side effects of the dexedrine! I was so relieved when I realized that i had found the solution to my problems that i burst out in tears. Getting "high" returned my appetite, calmed by mood swings, relieved a headache that nothing else could even touch, allowed me to return to a normal sleeping pattern...and by feeling so much better it also helped me achieve a healthy sex life with my husband.

Fast forward a few months, and I found that what the article had surmised was correct- 4 months after become a habitual user I was able to down grade from 60mg to 30mg, and a brain scan at my neuro-physchologist's showed a decrease in over-activity. I'm a successful executive who lives a normal upper class life, and I'm here to say that while giving marijuana to children may not be the best option, we have to keep an open mind about the use of medicinal marijuana, and i truly believe that in cases where nothing else has worked for these children, medical marijuana should be considered. As for those who say that until the long term effects of medical marijuana are proven it should never be prescribed to children, i say unless you have lived in the hell that psychosomatic drug can create, you have no room to judge. Sometimes quality of life comes before precedence.

do you want a kid bouncing off the walls or a kid sedated? interesting choices in parenting.

I'm sure there will always be people who believe that marijuana is a harmless, miracle joy-grass and nothing will convince them otherwise. It's unfortunate that Ritalin can have such bad side effects, but that doesn't mean that marijuana is a wonderful alternative. I hope that medical science comes up with something else that is effective for treatment of ADHD. I would not want to risk turning a child into a lazy dopehead.