'So there's a compassionate-care element to this.' Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of Rhode Island's health department. 'Severe autism in particular is not a curable disease, and there are very few treatment options,' says Dr. These reports from parents – along with input from local doctors and a review of the medical literature - helped persuade Rhode Island health officials to add autism as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana. He's not waking up angry, he's waking up and, and you know, just getting ready and doing his thing, and asking to get dressed and asking for breakfast.' 'I notice in the morning he's been a little easier to get along with,' Chris says. Kristal uses a plastic dosing syringe to draw out 25 milligrams of homemade cannabis-infused olive oil and squirts it into Dylan's open mouth.Īnd already Chris, says, they feel like it's working. His parents have learned to ignore these outbursts. 'Do your medicine real quick?' she says to Dylan. In their kitchen, Kristal shakes a medicine bottle filled with homemade marijuana oil. Levine, who treats Dylan, is supporting his parents' decision to see if medical marijuana can help their son. 'If your kid has cancer and you're failing chemotherapy and someone at NIH says we have an experimental drug, you'll go.' Todd Levine, a psychiatrist who specializes in working with children with autism at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island in Providence. 'In some ways I think about it like cancer care,' says Dr. The difference between then and every single summer in the past and now: medical marijuana.' The circled area highlights the major drop in behaviors. The high marks are from last summer – crazy, awful behaviors. Last winter, Dylan's behavior became so out of control he was hospitalized for nearly five weeks. They have also tried special diets: gluten-free and dairy-free. 'You would think a lot of the medications he's been on would tranquilize a horse,' Kristal says, ticking off a list of 16 different drugs he's tried, including Ritalin, Klonopin and Abilify. (To protect their son's privacy, we're not using the family's last name.)

And his symptoms seem to defy treatment with traditional medicine. Their son, Dylan, has an autism spectrum disorder.

He had only one self-injurious behavior, so that's pretty low.' 'So on this particularly day, he had 27 instances of property destruction,' Kristal says. Dylan's parents review the daily reports his school sends home. He's a skinny kid with glasses – still small enough for his mom to wrap him in a bear hug if he gets out of control. One November afternoon inside a raised ranch in Rhode Island, Kristal and Chris' 13-year-old son was just getting home from school. Chris holds a plastic syringe he and his wife use to administer homemade medical marijuana oil to their 13-year-old son, Dylan, who has autism.

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