Kids may seem an unlikely group to include in the medical marijuana debate, but some children with autism are reaping life-changing benefits from the drug. Mieko Hester-Perez, a mother in California, told the Early Show's Hattie Kauffman that marijuana saved her son's life.
Hester-Perez's 10-year-old son, Joey, was uninterested in food and weighed a startling 48 pounds. "Everyone that came to my home was watching me watch Joey die," Hester-Perez told Kauffman. "He was deteriorating hourly."
But that all changed with a batch of marijuana brownies. After four years of only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Joey's appetite came to life and revived him in other ways as well.
"We're seeing Joey come out," Hester-Perez said. "He's never made noises, we didn't even know he could make noise until the first batch of brownies."
While Kauffman noted that there's no evidence of marijuana helping with autism symptoms, other parents have come out with similar success stories, as seen in Marie Myung-Ok Lee's story on Slate's Double X blog in May.
WATCH the Early Show's interview with Hester-Perez:
First Posted: 11-23-09 04:48 PM | Updated: 11-23-09 05:09 PM