An article in The Conversation has reported that while many pediatricians in Canada are not jumping to prescribe medical cannabis for children, they are still seeing an increase in the amount of requests for it.
Dr. Adam Rapoport, medical director of the pediatric palliative care team at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, has said, “This is mostly driven by parents, and doctors have fallen behind.”
Lauren Kelly, a pharmacologist at scientific director of the Canadian Childhood Cannabinoid Clinical has added, “It’s happening and we’re playing catch-up.”
According to the article, 50% of the pediatricians surveyed in 2017 had at least one patient who had used cannabis for medicinal reasons in the past year.
Dr. Daniel Flanders, director of Kindercare Pediatrics in Toronto, say that requests have increased and the reasons for the requests are becoming more diverse. Flanders says that he is asked about medicinal cannabis at least two to three times a week for issues like ADHD, sleep problems, and mental health issues.
There have been only a few conditions that doctors believe the science for cannabis for kids is solid. Dr. Evan Lewis, a pediatric neurologist in Toronto, says there is very good evidence supporting the use of marijuana in certain seizure conditions, such as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, Dravet syndrome and tuberous sclerosis.
“Outside of that, it is kind of extrapolating from the evidence and using less robust evidence in the literature,” he says.
