the stories
"max"

​state
Texas
diagnosis
autism
age when starting cannabis
 19 years old
qualifying condition
​non-existent until he moves to a legal state, and then it will be seizures
Update 5/2016
Max is off of all seizure meds.  It took a year or so to safely wean him off of the dangerous pharmaceuticals that were ineffective and dangerous.  He is happy and doing really well with CBD:THC 1:1 patches and a paleo diet.  Max's family has made the painful decision to move to a legal state and are now considered to be medical refugees.
"Max" is a real boy, but that is not his real name.  Like many kids in illegal states, his mother risks everything to give her son the medicine he needs...medical marijuana.
  • Max’s mom became a felon the moment she transported cannabis across state lines. 
  • She continues her criminal activity by giving it thrice daily to her 20-year-old, severely autistic son
  • Max is self-injurious, aggressive towards others, and suffers from grand mal seizures.
  • At age 9 he started banging his head with his arm, against tabletops and through walls 
  • It got worse
    • In one incident, a few years ago, he got so angry in a parking he banged his head against their car windshield until it shattered.  He was angry because his mom wouldn't buy him a balloon.
  • At age 17 Max started having grand mal seizures.  Perhaps caused by years of head banging.
  • His mom tried many drugs to stop them, including Kepra, Laminal, Depakote, Zonegram, Tegretol and Vimpat 
  •  Certain drugs did work somewhat, but unfortunately the main side effect was horrible aggression
    • note that the aggression towards others started AFTER beginning prescribed meds for his seizures.
    • Max missed most of his senior year because of his severe behaviors.
    • His mother spent most of Max’s senior year locked in her bedroom to protect herself from him. 
    • As his primary caretaker, she was also his main victim. 
    • She has had handfuls of hair pulled out, been gouged by his fingernails, and bitten until bleeding.  Deep wounds that took weeks to heal.
    • She has scars the size of Max’s open mouth on her jawline, on both sides
  • The final drug they tried this past summer is called vimpat.
    • While on vimpat, the violence escalated to beyond the pale. 
    • One evening, Max pushed mother to the ground and jumped on her repeatedly.   She thought she was going to die. 
    • She couldn’t call the police for help b/c she was afraid they would take him away from her. 
    • Despite everything, losing Max was her biggest fear. 
  • After these episodes, she would literally have to hold Max and reassure him that he was loved and forgiven so that he wouldn’t try to kill himself with even more head banging. 
    • He was filled with remorse and self-hate for who he was and what he did to his mother.
    • He communicated these thoughts and feelings by typing. 
Desperate, she tried medical marijuana in the form of transdermal patches derived from whole plant cannabis. 
  • It was nothing short of a miracle. 
  • She started using them on a typical morning
  • Max was angry and pacing, so she applied a medical cannabis THC patch and quickly went back to lock herself in her room
  •  After 30 minutes, she didn’t hear anything so she went to check on him
    • Max was in his room, sitting on his bed, calm and smiling. 
    • Since that day, over 1 year ago, he has not had one aggression unless she tried a new med or couldn't give him his medical cannabis dose for some reason. 
    • The head banging has also stopped with the same exception as above.
    • The anxiety and OCD, that fueled these outbursts, is much better. 
  • To control his seizures, she added a medical cannabis CBD patch
  • She continues to tweak the ratios of CBD:THC (currently 1:1)
  • CBD patches did not help with behaviors. 
  • THC patches did not control seizures.
  • As a result of medical marijuana, Max and his mother are able to leave the house to take walks, go to church and run errands. 
  • They have goals and dreams again.
  • In her words, “every day is getting better and better”
  • She now admits that before medical marijuana, she really couldn’t handle Max, but with it, she can take care of her son.
Max is non-verbal, but he can communicate by independently typing on a keyboard. 
  • Here is what he had to say:
  • “Been so pleased with my new marijuana patches.  Got new life now.  Already thinking about the future.  I feel really good.  God is watching out for me.”