Timmen L. Cermak

“Despite doing well initially, he had lost several jobs when he got bored and began making careless mistakes. He felt he was intelligent and a hard worker, but things never seemed to work out – unless, he claimed, he used cannabis. He was convinced that smoking marijuana kept him calm and helped him concentrate, but he feared legal consequences if he had to continue relying on illegal dealers. He asked me to write a letter on his behalf, recommending he be given a state medical cannabis card. I had never written a medical cannabis recommendation at that time, so I insisted he first experience a trial of at least two different medications considered the standard of care for ADHD. I wanted to be sure he was receiving the best possible treatment. Morgan reluctantly agreed and started using Adderall, which contains several different amphetamine salts. He reported no improvement with this first-line medication and complained that it increased his anxiety and physical restlessness. As he scored no better on the computerized assessment for ADHD, we went on to a second-line medication. Again, he reported no improvement and said he had recently received a negative evaluation at work. I insisted on one more trial – Marinol (pharmaceutical-grade THC) – in”
― Timmen L. Cermak, Marijuana on My Mind: The Science and Mystique of Cannabis