Jeffrey's Journey (Healing a Child's Violent Rages)

Jeffrey’s Journey is a remarkable success story about a loving family’s refusal to give up on a deeply troubled child. Written by his mother and grandmother, the book chronicles the struggle of a very young boy diagnosed with severe behavioral problems, including compulsive and oppositional defiance disorders. By age seven, Jeffrey had seen multiple doctors and been prescribed over a dozen prescription medications to control his violent rages but nothing had helped. Then state officials gave Jeffrey’s mother an ultimatum: find something to manage your son or lose him to institutional lock-down. Extensive research convinced this conservative, Christian mother that medical marijuana could be her son’s last hope. Working with a courageous pediatrician and a patient’s cooperative, she discovered that cannabis calmed her son, allowing him to function so well that he was able to attend school and enjoy friends.

Jeffrey’s Journey details the success of Jeffrey’s treatment, Debbie’s court battle defending her son’s right to unconventional medicine and the threat to Jeffrey’s on-going care by federal raids on California’s medical marijuana dispensaries.

Includes material from the pediatrician who supervised Jeffrey’s marijuana therapy, letters from other struggling parents who heard about Jeffrey’s story on 48 Hours, and a resource section.