It's ridiculous to compare cannabis to heroin, but it's still worth pointing out that giving a strong dose to someone who is 9 is a very bad idea that would probably be very unpleasant for the kid. There can be a tendency for people to overcompensate to "reefer madness" propaganda and tell people there are no issues with marijuana. It's probably a lot better than alcohol, but it's still a psychoactive substance that needs to be treated with respect.
Fortunately, the mother in this article seems to realize that and has put in a lot of effort into proper dosing:
>After the cookies finished baking, I’d taste a few crumbs and annotate the effects in a notebook. Often, I felt woozy. One variation put me to sleep. When I had convinced myself that a batch was okay, I’d give a cookie to my 9-year-old son.
Absolutely - I hope my comment didn't read otherwise.
I'm just pointing out that the effects of a strong dose of heroin are nothing less than an urgent medical emergency and possibly a life-or-death situation.
The effects of a strong dose of cannabis are, as you say, likely to be quite unpleasant, but for other, less dramatic reasons.
Additionally, it is much, much easier to find a therapeutically effective dose of cannabis that is not unpleasant (or even otherwise noticeable) than with heroin or, for that matter, most other medical treatments. This is the killer feature of cannabis.
That said, I really agree with your argument. You make a great case for legalization that isn't merely "oh hur dur look how my child mellows out on weed." Thank you.
What is the advantage of this over raw plant material?
To a point, consistency. It might not even be pill form: vaporizers, inhalers, and other such things might work as well. It might be that the best way to do it is via hash instead of the unprocessed plant.
All that said, there is some concern with the synthetic. I have a feeling the very reason the plant works better is because of the high. For example, MS patients have problems with muscles. Patients report better mobility and less pain, yet the muscles don't actually improve. It seems it just doesn't bother them - and I imagine some of the synthetics wouldn't produce this effect.
It doesn't mean that synthetics won't work for some folks, though, and might be better for kids.
Consistency.
However, if consistent effect is the goal, I want to suggest that oral administration is not ideal in the first place, and that oral administration of isolated chemicals even less so.
Achieving the latter is more accessible via slow, careful titration via vaporization or smoking of high-quality plant matter.
This is the case at least for me and people I know, including several patients with otherwise debilitating illnesses.
Additionally, I think that the ability to garden and grow medicines (not just cannabis, but plant medicines generally) is a great way for patients to gain some control (or at least the sense of control) over their illness. It also is often more economically viable as well.
https://www.google.com/search?q=marinol&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
etc.
Methylphenidate is a different beast altogether and not neurotoxic like the amphetamines are even though in therapeutic doses amphetamines are also extremely safe. The difference is that amphetamines are both dopamine reuptake inhibitors and dopaminergic releasing agents while methylphenidate only inhibits dopamine reuptake alongside its effect as a CNS stimulant.
Read what you've said again; do you realize how completely ridiculous this sounds?
A "strong dose" of heroin, to a 9-year-old who is opiate naive, will obviously not cause them to "chill out." It will cause them to horribly itch, turn green in the face, violently vomit, alternate between pouring sweat and feeling freezing cold, moan and cry, and finally lose consciousness and quite plausibly their life.
Cannabis, even at a very "strong dose," will cause none of this.
As plant medicines go, cannabis is something like a wonder drug at least in the limited sense that it is therapeutically active for a wide array of conditions at very, very safe doses.
There may be no other drug which is a candidate for relief for the symptoms described in the article and for which a trial regiment has such a low cost in terms of risk.
Heroin most certainly isn't one.