Doctors Confirm Marijuana for ADD and ADHD

They are diagnoses at near epidemic proportions for kids in this country, ADD and ADHD, attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Fair or not, they are so common as to become part of the vernacular, referring to our collective short attention spans and inability to focus. Don't mind him. He's got ADD. According to a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, when our nation's doctors encounter a patient with one of these disorders, they go right to one drug. Methylphenidate. You may know it better as riddle it, but there is a lesser known treatment one that may, in fact, be more effective with fewer side effects. Cannabis. You may know that better as weed, refer, Mary Jane, marijuana. Dr. Claudia Jensen is a clinical instructor at the University of Southern California at a practicing pediatrician who advocates as the use of medicinal marijuana for the treatment of ADD and ADHD. Dr. Jensen, good evening. Hi, hello. This is, this is something you feel strongly about, you even testified before Congress a few weeks ago on the use of medical marijuana. What led you to the conclusion that this is a viable treatment for this disorder? Well, that's what patients reported to me, so I listened to them. When I started paying a attention and asking more questions when I did patient interviews, seems to be rather consistent. They keep saying it over and over again. There are parents who are no doubt thinking as they as they watch this without any kind of analysis or any kind of medical explanation or the expert testimony of a doctor who has listened to patients that this is that makes no sense to them the idea that they are fighting on one front the influence the pernicious influence of marijuana in a teenager's life, a kids life, and yet you are here saying that this can be of enormous value in treating this rampant and life constricting disease. How do you respond to people who have the knee jerk reaction? How could this possibly be any good? Well, first of all, you're right. This is a potentially life debilitating condition for a lot of children and adolescents that they become very angry. I think the answer to that question is that it needs to be evaluated by a physician before it's recommended to a child or an adolescent. And the truth is that one of the reasons that adolescents have an increasing use of cannabis marijuana in this country is because they've been lied to. They've been told that this is a very dangerous drug and that it has no benefit. And unfortunately, that's not what they experience in the street. And I think it's more appropriate to bring it up out of the streets and into the doctor's offices so that children and adolescents and parents can learn the truth, get some of the data, and look at this drug not with a reformadness perspective, but more with a scientific and factual perspective. How would you administer this to children at what age and I'm presuming that the means of dispensing would be primarily those other than smoking. And am I correct? That's I that's what I primarily recommend particularly with ADD and ADHD because smoking marijuana has such a short duration. It only lasts an hour and half to two hours. Plus there's the stigma of the child smoking anything, but smoking pot is a difficult social issue to deal with when you when they ingest can't cannabinoids or cannabis compounds. For example, marijuana, it lasts a lot longer. They can get all the way through the day with a single cannabis cookie or a piece of toast with cannabis peanut butter in it in the morning before school. They don't have to get stone to its dose related, but they do get the benefit of being able to focus and pay attention, not be impulsive, not be angry, be peaceful and relaxed and pay attention in school, which helps them get better grades, which is the important issue. Anything would work. Dr. Claudia Genson from USC. Many thanks for your time tonight. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Certainly. Before we leave tonight's number one story, one more thing you should know about. According to Dr. Richard Gorman, the chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs, one of the most prescribed drugs for children is a mocks of still and one in four children taking it each year. This is an antibiotic commonly used to treat complementary vegetables.