YES.

"...patients and doctors have been reporting that marijuana helps alleviate..."

Hmmm... patients and DOCTORS... if it was only the patients it would not be relevant.

"The disorder has been diagnosed in more than 4.5 million children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

4.5 million children in US?

It's a lot but they must have been very well diagnosed.

any rational person would see that the effects of long term marijuana use have been documented millions of times, whereas typically medicines used to treat ADHD are, in the grand scheme of things, brand new & and although have been tested, we have no real handle on their long term side effects after years of regular usage. we know that marijuana doesn't cause any significant health deficiencies, be it physical or psychological, after years of constant use. there are life-long regular users out there with no ailments attributed to their marijuana consumption. yet ritalin has many discovered negative side effects as well has the potential for many more long term problems. what's so eye popping about using something arguably more reliable, more effective, and unarguably far safer?

I have a friend w/ADD that uses marijuana to help him symptoms. It helps him a ton. Slows him down enough that he is actually able to finish things (and does a great job doing them). In his opinion it works just as well as prescription stimulants and has fewer side effects.

In terms of psychiatric drugs marijuana is actually pretty safe and without many side effects. So if people think it works, that's fine by me.

This should alarm everyone because it shows how shoddy the science behind ADHD really is. The reasons doctors give for prescribing an amphetamine cognate (Ritalin) to very young children cannot possibly coincide with the reasons doctors are giving for prescribing pot. I am for the legalization of pot, but against the diagnosis of ADHD and the medicalization of childhood. Let the kids smoke dope. Hell, even suggest it as useful. But don't force parents to submit to drug therapies by threatening to kick kids out of schools. ADHD is predominantly a description of boys in a school system dominated by women. Boys need older male companions, not drugs!

Side effects?
Somnolence, apathy, increased appetite, dry mouth, anxiety, paranoia: Sounds just like a psychiatric medication to me.

If pharma took marijuana, broke it down into a pill, and called it the 3rd generation A/D and didn't let on that it was just pure weed, people would think it was the greatest thing in the world. I'm guessing we'd see drop in the suicide rates, too.

Peace be with you Philip

Why can't you "sort this one out?" Do you buy into the reefer madness? Any medicine which has been recommended for at least the last 10,000 years can't be all bad. I knew of a case in which a 5 year old was given medical marijuana for seizures, and the courts agreed it work well enough to fall within the guidelines.

I might very well not be alive today without my MM. Though this isn't really along mental health lines, my blood presure went from medicine required high to about 60/90 by switching from prescription drugs to MM. Even in jail, 3 weeks off my medicine, my blood preasure only got up to 75/106 (though I can't guess what my hunger strike might of had to do with it).

I can only dream of the day when instead of drunks staggering out of bars look for fights, we have stoners bouncing out of smokeasies looking for hugs. Medical marijuana is harm reduction if nothing else.

love eternal
tad

Valid medicinal value, it’s a victimless crime, the War on Drugs WAY too costly, too many arrests for simple possession, tax it and use the money to pay for health insurance and to reduce the deficit…Need I say more?

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Peace, love, music, one world,
RFWoodstock

This is yet another example in the almost endless history of the medical establishment making whatever information it has conform to fit its needs. Rather than come to the most obvious conclusion that the concept of ADHD as distinct pathology lacks construct validity and certainly is not a dopamine problem to be cured by stimulants,the Drs quoted come to the conclusion that the non-specific CNS effects of smoking weed are just treating the disease it has sold to people as actually existing. On some level the medical establishment recognizes weed is going mainstream. In order not to loose its political and financial control over the distribution of this substance it must be sold as a legitimate tonic for a sanctioned disease process. If it is, it means that it is beyond the ability of the lay person to manage as it is too dangerous.Doctors made lots of $$ writing scripts for Heroin to treat Morphine addiction and then booze during prohibition.This will likely happen again with cannabis. I would prescribe it in a second if I could but I should not have to in order for a consenting adult to obtain it. Anyone who doubts this history should read "The Cult of Pharmacology" by Richard DeGrandpre.