Medical marijuana should only be used on sick children as an absolute last resort, according to a new report.
While the American Academy of Pediatrics says vigorous research is still needed to confirm the effects of medical marijuana on children, they also condone the medicine's (non-smoking) use on children when there are no other options.
The group announced that medical marijuana should no longer be paired with drugs from the government's most restrictive category (which includes heroin, LSD and other narcotics with no accepted medical use) and be switched to the category which includes methadone and oxycodone, reported the Associated Press.
The group recognized that recreational and medical marijuana use is legal for adults in four states and that nineteen other states, plus Washington D.C., have laws allowing medical marijuana use only and most allow children to qualify.
However, Dr. Angus Wilfong, of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston pointed out that marijuana has dozens of chemical components that need to be studied just like any drug to determine safety, proper doses and potential side effects.
"The cart is so far ahead of the horse related to this drug," Wilfong told the AP.
Wilfong recently had a patient involved in a small study whose seizures were handled with a marijuana-based treatment. Her condition improved dramatically over the last several months, but he said there isn't enough information to confirm that the marijuana caused her improvement.
Despite the lack of scientific proof backing medical marijuana, many parents attribute the drug to improving their children's seizures.
"We should not consider marijuana 'innocent until proven guilty,' given what we already know about the harms to adolescents," Dr. Sharon Levy, chair of the AAP Committee on Substance Abuse, told ABC News.
