"J" is an autistic child who also has post-surgical and bowel-related chronic pain.  His autism manifested itself as aggression rather than simple withdrawal, resulting in severe behavioral problems.  Authorities in Rhode Island granted the parents a license to give their child medical marijuana (they opted to do so in the form of brownies).   The results were dramatic:

Pre-pot, J. ate things that weren’t food… His pica become so uncontrollable we couldn’t let him sleep with a pajama top (it would be gone by morning) or a pillow (ditto the case and the stuffing)… The worst part was watching him scream in pain on the toilet, when what went in had to come out… Almost immediately after we started the cannabis, the pica stopped. Just stopped. J. now sleeps with his organic wool-and-cotton, hypoallergenic, temptingly chewable comforter.

Next, we started seeing changes in J.’s school reports… An aggression is defined as any attempt or instance of hitting, kicking, biting, or pinching another person. For the past year, he’d consistently had 30 to 50 aggressions in a school day, with a one-time high of 300. The charts for June through July, by contrast, showed he was actually having days—sometimes one after another—with zero aggressions.

This post is likely to elicit strong opinions; I would encourage everyone to at least browse the original source articles rather than basing judgments only on the excerpts above.

The article is written in two parts.  Link for original article.  Link for followup.

Via Metafilter.  Photo credit Marie Lee.