Medical cannabis in children

Adi Aran; Dalit Cayam-Rand

doi:10.5041/RMMJ.10386

Medical cannabis in children

Adi Aran^*
, Dalit Cayam-Rand

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

The use of medical cannabis in children is rapidly growing. While robust evidence currently exists only for pure cannabidiol (CBD) to treat specific types of refractory epilepsy, in most cases, artisanal strains of CBD-rich medical cannabis are being used to treat children with various types of refractory epilepsy or irritability associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Other common pediatric disorders that are being considered for cannabis treatment are Tourette syndrome and spasticity. As recreational cannabis use during youth is associated with serious adverse events and medical cannabis use is believed to have a relatively high placebo effect, decisions to use medical cannabis during childhood and adolescence should be made with caution and based on evidence. This review summarizes the current evidence for safety, tolerability, and efficacy of medical cannabis in children with epilepsy and in children with ASD. The main risks associated with use of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and CBD in the pediatric population are described, as well as the debate regarding the use of whole-plant extract to retain a possible “entourage effect” as opposed to pure cannabinoids that are more standardized and reproducible.

Original language	English
Article number	e0003
Journal	Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal
Volume	11
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5041/RMMJ.10386
State	Published - Jan 2020
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Gonen and Amital. This is an open-access article. All its content, except where otherwise noted, is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords

Autism
Cannabis
CBD
Children
Epilepsy
THC

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10.5041/RMMJ.10386

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Medical cannabis in children

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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