MEDICAL POT WAR ENGULFS BOY, 7

A Placer Mom Says Cannabis Muffins Aid His Brain Disorder

He's 7 years old and afflicted with a disorder of the brain that for years
has wracked his body with extreme changes in mood, energy and behavior. And
today, he's at the center of a controversy that pits a caring parent
against a protective bureaucracy on the high-octane battlefield of medical
marijuana.

It's a war being conducted behind closed doors because it involves a child,
a boy Placer County seeks to take away from a mother who says the cannabis
muffins she feeds her son have improved his life.

For more than four years, the child had been a terror at home, unmanageable
at school and a challenge to doctors and nurses who had ministered to him
during three psychiatric hospitalizations.

And according to a Web site published by his mother, she has tried
everything to stabilize his illness, administering 19 drugs prescribed by
16 doctors over a span of four years.

When all failed, the homepage revealed, the mother turned to a home remedy
approved by her son's pediatrician: muffins flavored by a pinch of marijuana.

Five weeks later, the results were in:

"My son for the first time in his life is laughing and loving life," the
30-year-old Rocklin woman wrote. "He has very little to no angry outbursts,
he is compliant, is doing great in school, and actually is making friends."

The change in her son's demeanor even prompted a letter from one of his
school counselors, she said on the Web site.

It read, "(Your boy's) behavior over this past five weeks has taken a
dramatic turn. (He) has gone from daily multiple visits to our behavior
intervention room to one brief visit last Thursday . . . a 180-degree turn."

Not everyone is enamored of the woman's approach to her son's affliction,
however.

Placer County's Child Protective Services has "taken me to court," she said
on the Web site, "with accusations of me abusing my son."

Authorities have filed a petition that, under Welfare and Institutions Code
Section 300, could result in the boy's removal from his home and placement
elsewhere as a dependent of the court.

Because such proceedings are confidential under state law, neither the
mother nor her attorney, Wendell Phillips, would discuss the matter Tuesday.

And county spokeswoman Anita Yoder said that the nature of the case
precluded the county from commenting.

A hearing Tuesday was just one step in a series of Placer County Juvenile
Court proceedings that will examine whether the boy is being harmed by the
treatment. Neither side would say when the next hearing would be.

Proponents of medical marijuana have picked up on the controversy and are
criticizing Placer County for overreaching in its war against Proposition
215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. They suggest that the county
apparently has taken the position that Proposition 215 does not apply to
children.

The law permits Californians with a physician's approval to use marijuana
for medical purposes.

Use of medical marijuana by children has never been studied, according to
Drew Mattison, co-director of the Center for Cannabis Research at the
University of California, San Diego.

"There are anecdotal reports, but not a body of scientific literature," he
said.

According to the Web site, which was posted before Tuesday's Juvenile Court
hearing, the boy's mother says he has bipolar disorder and also has been
diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, conduct disorder, impulsive
disorder, oppositional-defiant disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, but none of the drugs prescribed ever worked.

"I have supported doctors and government agencies attempting anything to
help my son," the mother said. "The adverse reactions these medications
have had on him, not to mention the unknown of what they are doing to his
system, is heart-wrenching to a mother."