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COOK PUBLIC RELATIONS

Medical Marijuana―Should it be used for treating children?

If it was your child, what would you do?

A concerned mother advocates medical marijuana for
children and tells how nothing else worked for her
severely troubled son in Jeffrey’s Journey.

Marijuana’s beneficial medicinal uses have been known for centuries. Recent studies such as The Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report on medical marijuana states that the drug is helpful for control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation. Marijuana also provides proven, effective pain relief for patients with cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and AIDS, and also helps those suffering from spasticity, anorexia, chronic pain, migraine, arthritis, and other illnesses.

If you had a small child with behavioral problems so severe that he was in an aggressive rage most of the time, what would you do? Jeffrey’s Journey: Healing a Child’s Violent Rages, (March 2005; Quick American), written by Jeffrey’s mother, Debbie Jeffries, with his grandmother, LaRayne Jeffries, recounts the heartbreaking, true story of her son’s struggle with obsessive compulsive and oppositional defiance disorders. Diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Impulse Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Tourette’s Syndrome and Oppositional Defiance Disorder, different doctors prescribed a shocking number of conventional medications for Jeffrey, none of which worked and many that had frightening side effects. After years of ineffective diagnoses and drug treatments, frustration, and psychiatric hospitalizations, the Jeffries’ tell the story of their life-changing decision to try medical marijuana.

Although strongly against the idea of medical marijuana at first, Debbie, faced with the real possibility of having her son institutionalized, found a new doctor who agreed to prescribe medical marijuana for Jeffrey. Forty-five minutes after eating part of a muffin with marijuana baked inside, Jeffrey said that he was “happy, not mad…and my head doesn’t feel noisy anymore.” Jeffrey was now able to maintain control most of the time, and was capable of benefiting from psychological and behavioral counseling. “The positive effects of the marijuana on Jeffrey’s behavior were too profound to be questioned,” writes Debbie. It wasn’t a cure, but it was still a miracle and a very surprising answer to their prayers. For almost two blessed years, Jeffrey was able to experience “normal” life, complete with going to school, living at home, and having friends. And then it all came to a grinding halt.

In the Fall of 2002, Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) in Santa Cruz, California the organization where Debbie Jeffries received medical marijuana aid for her son was closed down by the Federal Government. Without medical marijuana, Jeffrey’s violent rages quickly returned. When the organization was reinstated, they were never able to perfectly duplicate Jeffrey’s prescription. As a result, Jeffrey had to be sent to a ranch in Utah for troubled youth. He was taken off all medications and remains living there today.

About the Authors

Debbie Jeffries and her mother LaRayne Jeffries wrote Jeffrey’s Journey to educate others about the potential beneficial use of medical marijuana for children and others like Jeffrey. They have appeared on Montel Williams and 48 Hours to share their personal experience with medical marijuana. They live and continue their advocacy efforts from their homes in Northern California.

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