Drugs and Other Treatments as they Relate to The Spectrum

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Drugs and Other Treatments

As They Relate to The Spectrum

"The Spectrum" generally means the autism Spectrum, including Asperger's syndrome, HFA, PDD, Kanner's autism and other autism spectrum conditions. Many people "on the Spectrum" are comfortable with the generic reference of "autistic".

These pages are is personal opinion of the authors. SCN doesn't take a position on these issues.

In general autism is a personality (or personality disorder depending on one's political viewpoint). A significant percentage of people on The Spectrum -- probably the majority -- would object to a "cure". It's unlikely that drugs therapy would "cure" a personality condition in any meaningful way.
Regardless, some drugs may be considered useful by some. Here is the list:
1. Caffeine
No other links yet (although this page was written with the aid of quite a bit of "organic shade grown" from Whole Foods). Caffeine is, after all, a drug of choice of many people in the workplace.
Caffeine is sometimes useful for people with Asperger's Syndrome to maintain alertness in circumstances which tend to have the opposite effect, e.g., an afternoon work meeting. Colloquially, I have seen several comments to the effect that, "caffeine is the only drug for autism."

(end of list)

If someone is "treating" autism with a prescription drug, they either are treating something else or are grossly misprescribing the drug. Autism is not treated with any accepted prescription drugs.

Experimental Treatments

The examples fall into the "politically sensitive" area. This is because of the nature of autism and Asperger's syndrome as personality types. Therefore drug therapies are likely to focus on temporarily altering the patient's perceptive state (rather than "curative" or attempting to reduce disease symptoms). Drugs in this category are hallucinogens.
Since hallucinogenics are used recreationally, their use for psychological treatment becomes a political issue. The recreational interest in these drugs does not negate their ability to provide perception in a therapeutic environment.
The history of some of these treatments focused on attempts to "cure" autism. These attempts at "cure" had a negative impact on subsequent investigations of treatments using hallucinogenic drugs. In fairness, this was from a time when autism was not well-understood.
Note: I am not encouraging the use of either of these drugs. I don't have any legal problem advocating this; it's just that I don't feel like being their proponent. I don't have either the knowledge or data to conclude that either drug would be beneficial. Marijuana is fairly well-known as to its effects, but LSD-25 involves issue which suggest professional supervision.
I do strongly advocate clinical trials being performed.

Medical Marijuana (MMJ)
Medical marijuana (MMJ) is not an option in many jurisdictions. While MMJ is being advanced in connection with autism, most of the experience in MMJ for personality conditions relates to ADHD.
Significantly, more "controlled study" psychological research is desperately needed. It is highly unlikely that MMJ will change the autism itself; however MMJ has the potential for therapy regarding social awareness issues.

From www.autism.org Autism and Medical Marijuana
In general these are personalities or personality disorders (depending on one's political viewpoint).
A significant percentage of autistics -- probably the majority -- would object to a "cure". As noted above, it's unlikely that drugs therapy would "cure" a personality condition. MMJ treatment is focused on socialization training; not an attempt at a "cure". Such training or therapy related to "perception" would be easily evaluated, and will provide novel results for anyone researching this.
As to the issue of legal access, there are medical conditions for which the need for MMJ is more obvious than therapy for autism.

Medical marijuana is proposed to address issues of:

as a training aid to assist the subject in perception of social interactions
sensory overload (e.g., "meltdowns")
anxiety

CBS article on use of MMJ to treat ADHD

Article on one family's use of MMJ, for disorders which are apparently ADHD-related.

... and consider the following scenario:
"Dear Mrs.Smith,
Thank you for your letter. I feel we should apologise for sending your son home in such a condition last week. The School Nurse was absent and her medication list is not kept on the school computer system for obvious reasons. Regrettably, your son was given the wrong medication by the stand-in Nurse and he spent the afternoon on top of the cricket pavilion discussing Nietzsche with the sparrows.
I can assure you that this will not happen again, and we are considering a policy of tagging pupils who are on such potent medication."

LSD-25

Early studies, mostly 1960-1965 (when Sandoz discontinued distribution of LSD), investigated the use of LSD in an attempt to "cure" autism. This research has been severely criticized as abusive by autistics, in part because of consent issues. It should be noted that the nature of autism was less understood at that time. The "curative" approach to autism was also problematic.
The politics of "cure" notwithstanding, there is an inherent problem with the early studies. LSD is the archetypical hallucinogenic drug. Unless one is going to maintain a lifelong LSD trip, it makes no sense as a curative treatment. The value of LSD would be in presenting a set of perceptions which may not otherwise be available to the patient. This was apparently never investigated during those early studies.
This early abuse resulted in a reluctance to experiment on the use of LSD in therapy. It is likely that LSD may be useful for therapy related to instruction, perspective or social conditioning.
It may be that a "non-curative" approach will be worth studying under professional guidelines.

The early research included studies by child psychiatrist Lauretta Bender (1897-1987). In most of her reports, she referred to "autistic schizophrenic children". At least one reference mentions that the children, "...became disturbed to the extent that they said we were experimenting on them." L. Bender, Children's Reactions to Psychotomimetic Drugs, Psychotomimetic Drugs, pp. 265-273; 1970.
Results of the Early LSD-25 Studies
The questionable approaches of these early studies notwithstanding, two items stand out:
1. The daily maintenance course of treatment (meaning daily dosages)
In addition to the "attempted cure" approach, this meant that the experiments did not test the possibility of using the perceptions or other results of the therapy as an education or therapeutic tool applicable to behaviour while not under the influence of LSD-25. Curiously, the concept of occasional use was addressed by other advocates of the drug at the time.
"... the dosage was gradually increased to twice or three times a week ... Finally, the drug was given daily and was continued for about 6 weeks.
The physicians conclude from the experiment that:

* The children were generally happier; their mood was "high" in the hours following ingestion of the drug.
"
Bender L, Goldschmidt L, Siva DV: LSD-25 Helps Schizophrenic Children; Amer. Druggist, 146(13):33 (1962).

2. The "curative" approach to treatment.

Nevertheless, results of an "educational" or "therapeutic" nature were noted:
"... Nearly all of them were more alert, aware, and interested watching other persons. Some showed changes in facial expression in appropriate reactions to situations for the first time; many were able to understand and follow directions more readily. This increase in awareness was noted by all observers, including families, and was one of the most encouraging signs in these very withdrawn, regressed children. Personnel and parents were enthusiastic about the changes in the children, describing them as "more affectionate," "more aware," and interested in them or in siblings for the first time.
...
"Changes in speech and verbal communication in autistic children are always difficult to evaluate. We did observe, however, that the vocabularies of several of the children increased after LSD or UML; several seemed to be attempting to form words or watched adults carefully as they spoke; many seemed to comprehend speech for the first time or were able to communicate their needs. Many times, words or even sentences were used ... Very few of these changes in communication had been noted previously in such a large number of children, and at such a relatively rapid rate."
L. Bender, G. Faretra, L. Cobrinik: LSD and UML Treatment of Hospitalized Disturbed Children; Recent Advances in Biological Psychology, 5:84-92 (1963).

The above is not suggested as condoning the experimentation techniques and the value judgements implied by the researchers' analysis. It is merely presented to point out that clinically accepted documentary evidence exists to support properly constructed trials, with voluntary subjects. While early advocates did suggest an education therapy approach involving non-continuous treatment, there are no clinically accepted reports in this.
Non Maintenance LSD-25 Studies
Curiously, the proposals of Timothy Leary were directed to non-maintenance doses. His work gained some notority because of his self-medication and discussions of religious experiences. The following excerpt describes one experiments, in this case with psilocybin in a combined LSD-psilocybin study:
"... The sample included a woman who volunteered to take psilocybin at an average of two-week intervals during pregnancy ... [B]oth mother and child have showed no detrimental effects whatsoever. The mother reported that her own mental status and her reaction to the baby were much improved over those in four earlier pregnancies."
... during which she just drank a lot?
Leary T, Litwin GH, Metzner R.: Reactions to psilocybin administered in a supportive environment; J. Nerv. Ment. Disease, 137:561-573 (1963).

There are some more standard forms of research that were performed along the lines of perception training, although not focused on autism. Most notable was a study made in 1966 by Thomas M. Ling and John Buckman, in which six sessions of LSD are described, at apparently widely varying time intervals:
... A case of complete frigidity without other neurotic features is reported which has been fully relieved after six sessions of LSD. ... Her husband reports that the patient is much happier ... and that their sexual life has been revolutionized..."
Thomas M. Ling and John Buckman: The Treatment of Frigidity with LSD and Ritalin; Psychedelic Rev. 1: 450-458 (1966).
The later article is noteworthy as an example of the use of LSD to provide perspective to the patient. These were specifically not maintenance dosages, but instead a course of 6 sessions. I personally think he could have left the Ritalin out of these trials.

Finding This Website

The URL is www.scn.org/people/autistics/pharmaceuticals.html but www.scn.org/autistics/pharmaceuticals.html also works.
This index page URL is www.scn.org/people/autistics/ but www.scn.org/autistics/ also works.

So far, Google, Yahoo and AltaVista pick up this website by using the following searches:
relationships and the autism spectrum
or
"relationships and the spectrum" autism

Comments about this site: email me
www.scn.org/~bk269/

Note that this is a group website and some of the pages on this website are not mine. Please get in touch with the cognizant people for the other pages. Also, let the author know which pages you're writing about. If you see text material on the net, there's a good chance that the author has written dozens of pages, and so it helps if you give the author some clue as to which page you're writing about.
This page written 6-May-05 from text incorporated into website 03-2005. Website first posted 9 Aug 02. Last revised 7-Jun-05.