Fake Image Pushing Medical Pot Goes Viral

The above image made the rounds through my Facebook feed today. It cropped up in a half-dozen crunchy mom groups and on the timelines of twelve of my friends. All these groups and individuals have different backgrounds and many don't know each other. They share one trait in common: an interest in alternative medicine, including medical cannabis.

It should have been a red flag that the image's main source was Tommy Chong, the pseudonym of a self-identified comedian whose sense of humor amounts to, "LOL, weed." Prior to that-- and only slightly less suspiciously-- it had appeared two years ago on Green CulturED, "the world's leading cannabis college." These are not unbiased sources with the goal of promoting children's health. They're Facebook pages for stoners.

Perhaps, if the boy pictured had actually survived cancer in part because of medical cannabis, there would be good reason to share the photo. Medical marijuana use for children, particularly those with severe forms of epilepsy, is a fast-growing topic of research. That's why, this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated their policy on medical marijuana to make room for its use for children "with severely debilitating conditions for whom current therapies are inadequate."

While opposing recreational marijuana and warning against pot's use as anything other than a last-resort treatment for children with very serious illnesses, science leaves wiggle-room for the experimental use of medical cannabis for very sick kids. And that's a good thing, particularly for the crowds of families who have been moving to Colorado in desperate search of treatment options for their children with severe forms of epilepsy.

The problem is that the child pictured didn't survive cancer because of cannabis. He never used it. The boy pictured is Liam Fitzgerald, who fought acute lymphoblastic leukemia from age five to age nine. By the time he had his final round of chemotherapy, he had spent nearly half of his life fighting cancer. In 2013, his parents posted this photo to celebrate:

Notice that there's no mention of medical marijuana or any other form of alternative medicine. That's because Liam, who has Down syndrome, wasn't treated with alt-med, but with intensive treatment in conventional hospitals with the most powerful, state-of-the-art, mainstream medicine available. His battle was a long and hard one. His mother wrote:

"There were multiple visits to the emergency room, seizures, fevers, infections and endless ongoing treatments and medications. For the next 4 years, our life wasn't our own but dedicated to making our son healthy again.

People would say, "how do you deal with all of this and work and raise the rest of your family." The answer is simple - you just DO! You don't have a choice - this is your child and you will do anything you can for them. Although this illness and experience was difficult, it also had a lot of positive aspects to it. There are the people you meet along the way - some just like you who are on the same journey. The journey that made all of us a lot stronger along the way. The journey where faith, family and friends were such a critical part of our lives and our support. The journey where we met so many wonderful people - like the doctors, nurses and other parents dealing with similar and in many cases much more difficult childhood cancers.

Liam's recovery happened because his parents trusted the scientific community and leaned on their family, friends, and spirituality for support. Pot had nothing to do with it, and Photoshopping the sign he held is unfair to him and to the many people who used science-based medicine to save him.

It is cruel, and dangerous, to deliberately attribute a child's cancer recovery to a treatment that he did not use. It's particularly cruel when it's done by people who are promoting marijuana's legalization not just as medicine, but as a recreational drug. If you want pot to be legalized so you can get high, say that you want pot to be legalized so you can get high. Don't exploit a sick child in the process. 

What if Pot Were a Pharmaceutical Drug?

Let's play a game for a minute. Let's say that Big Pharma has released a new line of medication that, they say, can treat almost any condition. Although there isn't much evidence to back its use for anything besides nausea and anorexia, they recommend it to treat everything from cancer and epilepsy to depression and anxiety. They even say it's safe for kids and suggest giving it to kids with autism to control their tantrums. Pregnant women take it and so do nursing moms, even though the risks of this are unknown. Doctors are given kickbacks for prescribing it, and it spreads like wildfire.

But, soon after it hits the market, it's clear that it has some serious side effects. A lot of people say it makes them sleepy or dissociated. Although widely prescribed as a treatment for anxiety disorders, most patients find that it causes panic attacks in people susceptible to them. It becomes famous for causing paranoia. Some people using it experience delusions and hallucinations. Others make irresponsible and reckless decisions they would not ordinarily make. Some people experience full-blown psychosis that becomes chronic and are later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It seems to increase the risk of suicide, especially in teens, and driving after taking it proves to be dangerous. It also acts as a powerful appetite stimulant and causes unwanted weight gain in many people using it. Long-term, people taking the medication show decreased IQ and higher rates of some forms of cancer. People who are unhappy with the side effects try to quit, but, for some, it is psychologically addictive.

In the end, the American Medical Association, American Society of Addiction Medicine, and American Academy of Pediatrics reach a consensus that the risks of this drug are greater than the benefits. They say that the evidence of benefit is small and that the risks are unacceptably high.

Surely, in this situation, the crunchy community would be up in arms about how dangerous it was for the FDA to ever approve a drug with so many side effects and so few benefits, and how horrible the physicians were for prescribing it with so little evidence. So why is it that, when the drug in question is pot, so many people are willing to wave aside all the side effects and risks? Why is it that, when the people recommending it are laymen and not doctors, it is assumed to be safer and more effective than prescription alternatives?

Despite what it may sound like, I'm not a Reefer Madness type. I smoked enough weed in one summer to last a couple of lifetimes; I'm not a stranger to it. I support the legalization of recreational marijuana and, hey, if someone gets a medicinal benefit from it, that's fine too. I understand that it is no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol and I don't think that banning it entirely is a good solution. However, it's worrisome to me that the crunchy community so overwhelmingly supports medicinal marijuana even though it would not support the use of a pharmaceutical drug with the same side effects and the same very limited number of benefits.

We can't ignore the risks of marijuana. It's not poison-- smoking it one time, or even regularly, probably won't kill you. But if you're unlucky enough, or stupid enough, you could be one of the people who gets in a wreck while driving high. Or you could be one of the many people who experiences the onset severe depression or anxiety after using it. (I was one of those people and found that my mental health improved dramatically after I stopped smoking.) Or, worse, you could be one of the people who develops schizophrenia or bipolar disorder after smoking it for the first time. That's not common, but it happens: we can't ignore science just because it makes us uncomfortable. More likely than any of these things, though, you could become one of the many people who gets high all the time and turns fat, lazy, and stupid as a result.

All of these risks exist-- some of them to a greater degree- with alcohol, and that's why I don't have an issue with recreational marijuana use. If you want to light up because it's fun, I don't see a problem with it. What I see a problem with, is people encouraging each other to smoke weed for medicinal purposes, when they would never recommend a prescription drug that caused the same number of side effects and risks. Unless you'd also tell your friend to pop a prescription medication that would likely make him hungry, sleepy, and unable to safely drive, it's time to stop suggesting that everyone use pot as a DIY treatment for every medical condition in the world.