you were really rocking it, man. you're selling the ball cap. this will conclude whatever this was. >> the following is a cnn special report. >> people are lighting up all over the country. they call it the green rush. marijuana has moved out of the back allies and into the open. in some states it's legal to grow, to sell, to smoke. and marijuana could be legalized in a city near you. so easy to get. and many hi so harmless. but when the smoke clears, is

marijuana bad for you? or could pot actually be good for you. >> marijuana is better than all of those pills for you in terms of treating? >> yeah. >> i travel the world for answers. what does marijuana do to you? what does it do to your kids? a special investigation. weed. >> our journey begins here in this small town home nestled in the mountains with a family that never allowed tv cameras in before and you'll soon learn why. >> it's so pretty out here. >> yeah. >> they live in colorado. one of two states where it's legal to smoke pot medically and recreationally but here it's also taboo to residents like page and her husband matt. >> i'm sure it was mentioned to us by someone. you should try this and i thought no way. >> you thought that's fringe stuff. >> no way. not in a million years, no. >> but in this area marijuana is

far from fringe. >> do you want island sweet. >> dispensaries are everywhere. but none of this is for matt. he's a military man and marijuana would be a career ending. >> i grew up in wisconsin in a well loving family and i was educated that's a drug. you don't do that. i never did. >> but decades ago marijuana was a legitimate medication also called cannabis described by doctors and dispensed by pharmacies. but that all changed in 1930. >> relentless warfare against -- >> henry, the united states's first drug czar. for him public enemy number one, you guessed it, marijuana. >> this guy saw how he increased the budget of his department by having this mission going after marijuana. >> saying there's this drug that

the mexican migrant workers are smoking and it's going to make them crazy and they're going to rape your women. >> he got the antimarijuana message out through news reports and then came this. the film reefer madness. portraying the users of marijuana as unproductive, crazed. >> people are still afraid of what pot can do to them. >> in many ways to have defined our attitudes now for 70 years. >> yeah. >> it then became illegal in 1937 and by 1970 it was a schedule 1 controlled substance. the government was saying it had no value and high potential for abuse. all reasons why they stayed away from marijuana until this. and this might be hard for some of you to watch.

>> it's okay, baby. >> this is their daughter charlotte having a seizure. >> we thought it was one random febrile seizure. >> nothing to do. it's a fluke. >> right. >> a fluke made sense. after all, charlotte nicknamed charlie was born perfectly healthy. a fraternal twin to sister chase. >> charlie always had big, big smiles. happy kids. >> easy. >> very much so. >> so it was around three months you said that when you first noticed that charlie had a seizure. >> yeah. i was putting a new diaper on from after the bath and her eyes just started flickering. >> it led to the first of many trips to the er. >> they did the million dollar work up. the mri, eeg, spinal tap, they did the whole work up and found nothing and sent us home. >> no abnormal blood tests. no abnormal scan.

developing normally. talking and walking the same day as her twin. nothing was behind yet. >> by the time he was two the seizures had become constant and started to take their toll on their once happy joyful little girl. >> she started to decline cognitively and she was slipping away and not keeping up with her twin. they finally found an answer. it was awful news. it is severe epilepsy. the seizures start during the first year of life and are unstoppable. difficult to control and very damaging. >> severe behavioral problems. attention deficit and hyperactivity. the self-injury. banging her head on the floor and pulling her hair out. like a possessed child. this isn't your perfect happy charlotte. >> it was a race against time. many kids die young in early childhood. charlotte was almost three. for the next two years they

tried everything. strange diets, acupuncture and dozens of powerful drugs like valium, ativan, but nothing seemed to help. even worse, some of the medications nearly killed her. >> after one dose she stops breathing. after two doses her heart will stop. >> did you have to do cpr then on her yourself. >> i remember when her heart stopped and i had her pulse and i lost her pulse. there was nothing. the ambulance is on its way. >> she survived. >> you're okay. mommy's here. >> but now it was fall of 2011 and charlotte was five years old. >> when things are at her worst she will seize all night. the kids are next door and they can hear her all night 50 times a night and chase would come in in the morning and just misses her twin and just hug her and rub her head and say i'm so glad you survived through the night last night.

matt had been deployed to afghanistan and the only thing he could do to help was scour the internet and he stumbled on to this video of a child using marijuana. >> how is everything going? >> he had four days without a seizure. i'm like wow he's having success. this is interesting. it's natural. >> while he couldn't imagine taking marijuana for himself he was in the stunning position of recommending it for charlotte. >> i said we need to do this. >> i said i don't know. >> and then her condition got worse. 300 she 300 a week. almost two every hour. she was not talking or moving. as a last resort doctors wanted to either prescribe a vet drug used on epileptic dogs or put her in a medically induced coma so her brain and body could

rest. for paige, those were not good options but maybe, just maybe, marijuana now was. but she was about to find out how hard that would be. >> this isn't go to the pharmacy and pick you were your medicine. there was no protocol. >> when we come back, what will they do and what would you do if this were your daughter? ♪ if you want a paint that's more than just easy to scrub. if you want a paint that actually repels dirt and grime. if you want a paint that stand's up to life's wear and tear... only this can. regal select from benjamin moore. paint like no other.

the beautiful sound of customers making the most of their united flight. power, wi-fi and streaming entertainment. that's... seize the journey friendly. before i had the shooting, these feet grew up in a family diabetic of boys... married my high school sweetheart... and pursued a degree in education. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and she prescribed lyrica. nerve damage from diabetes causes diabetic nerve pain.

lyrica is fda-approved to treat this pain. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new, or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. now i have less diabetic nerve pain. and i love helping first graders put their best foot forward. ask your doctor about lyrica.

>> we've seen her flat line in

the hospital. we've said good-bye. >> you're listening to matt and paige describe their own daughter. what would you do if this was your child? charlotte had an extreme form of epilepsy. her body was so frail that any seizure could kill her. with no traditional treatment left to try and the clock ticking away. her parents decided to try marijuana. charlotte was just five years old. >> you need a card in order to be able to get the cannabis from a pharmacy. doctors describe it. >> you need two doctors in colorado to get the card for a juvenile or child. it was hard. we were the first young child and they said no. everyone said no. >> certainly her age played a role in my hesitating. >> he was among a handful of doctors that give prescriptions for medical marijuana. >> from the moment charlotte entered his office he knew she

was in trouble. while he was just examining her she had two seizures. >> she had failed everything. there were no more options for her. everything had been tried. except cannabis. >> here's how scientists think it might work. marijuana is made up of two main ingredients. thc, that's the part that makes you high and cbd. it's the cbd that scientists think modulates electrical and chemical activity to help quite the excessive activity in the brain that causes seizures. dr. julie holland is the editor of the pot book. a complete guide to cannabis. >> the work on cannabis and epilepsy was inconclusive. they couldn't figure it out and it's when they started separating thc from cbd that they saw cbd seems to really stop seizures. >> so they needed to find something that was rare. a strain of marijuana that was low in thc. of course they didn't want

charlotte getting stoned. but also high in cbd to treat her seizures. and that wouldn't be easy. dispensaries and growers, they make their money off strains that are high in thc. >> i'm joel. >> i'm josh. >> no one knows that better than the stanley brothers. their family business is pot. and if you look at these clean cut guys and what you see surprises you, don't worry, they've heard it all before. >> when we round the corner they're like oh, wait a second. did you finish high school. >> they all not only finished high school but also college and in some cases graduate school. now they are some of colorado's biggest growers and dispensary owners. they produce up to 600 pounds of medical marijuana a year. and much of that marijuana is high in thc. but here on their remote farm at this undisclosed location in the mountains. >> it takes a lot of plants.

we're allowed to grow six per patient. >> they have been growing something different. something they call revolutionary. >> so green house 1. greenhouse 1. >> yes, welcome to it. >> welcome to paradise. >> behind closed doors and under tight security we enter what the stanleys call the garden of eden. >> there's nothing like this in the world. this plant is 21% cbd and less than 1% thc. >> it took years of cross bredding plants to get to this point. >> instead of breeding up the thc we bred it down. people say you're crazy. who is going to smoke that. >> so why grow it then? well the stanleys also believed in cbd's potential to treat many diseases. and they had seen it change lives before. >> i always have two -- >> meet 19-year-old chaz moore. he uses many different strains

of marijuana. many of them high in cbd to treat his rare disorder of the diagram. that's why he's talking this way. almost speaking in hiccups like he can't catch his breath. >> this fluttering here it's annoying but it becomes painful pretty quickly i imagine. >> yeah. after like 15 or 20 minutes this is when i can start to really feel it. >> he is about to show me how the marijuana works. he has been convulsing now for 7 minutes. >> how quickly do you expect this to work? >> within like the first five minutes. i'm done. that's it. >> it was actually less than a minute. >> depending on the attack and the day it will work within the first couple of hits. >> hear how his voice is completely different. that attack lasted 8 minutes.

but some have lasted much longer and happen as often as 40 times a day and like charlotte he had tried so many things before. by 16 chaz was taking powerful addictive potentially deadly narcotics and muscle relaxants daily like valium and morphine. >> it would be safe to say the marijuana that you had in your hand there is better for all the pills there in terms of what's treating what's going on. >> yeah, i'll not a zombie. i had 16 or 17 attacks today and my first attack on these i'd be in the hospital. >> i'm a firm believer that marijuana saved my son's life. >> chaz's father, son. >> his quality of life now is a thousand times better than when he was on the pharmaceuticals. >> a quality of life that paige wanted for her daughter charlotte. but she still had one hurdle to cross.

convincing dispensary owners like the stanleys to sell marijuana to a 5-year-old little girl. >> when charlotte's mother called my brother joel, the brothers had a meeting and said tell us about this patient. she's 5 years old he said and we said no. we can't do that? >> why? the fear of the unknown. charlotte was one of the youngest patients at the time wanting marijuana. would it be too much for her or would it change her life forever? we'll find that out later. but first learn more about what marijuana does to your kid's brain and yours as well. i am totally blind. and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24. learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com.

if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems,

serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com this is humira at work

april 20th, denver colorado. tens of thousands from around the country and the world lighting up legally. >> happy cannabis cup y'all. >> for some it's a life style. for others, it's a lifeline. >> we're working with the lupus foundation and rheumatoid arthritis. >> but for all of them i wondered what was it doing to their brains. >> my patients call me pot doc. >> they call you pot doc. >> they never meet anyone as interested in hearing about their pot use as i am. >> she is serious about pot. >> i want you to name the color and not to read it. >> i met her in her labs near boston. she is using high-tech imaging to see what happens in the brain when you smoke. >> when you first smoke, that is

you light up a joint, a blunt, receptors that are throughout the brain respond and these areas of the brain are responsible for things like pleasure, memory, learning, sensation, sense of time and space, coordination, movement, appetite and other drives shall we say. so it's sort of an all over impact, right? >> so reward, pleasure, hunger, this overall feeling of wellbeing. >> that's good. but it's this phenomenon reported by many smokers over the years especially famous artists, the ability to be more creative. >> when you feel that high there's a release of dopamine and your brain has the ability to perceive things slightly differently. what you see is this reduction

in inhibitory function. >> welcome. >> less inhibition. that's something this painter says helps him be more creative. his canvases sell for up to $25,000. >> it's my favorite way to work. >> using marijuana. >> yeah. >> he's been painting for 14 years. smoking for even longer. he says it makes him feel more relaxed but most importantly for him, he says it makes him less critical of his own work. top worrying about this and that and being as present as possible. >> he does caution it's a delicate balance for him. it would make me paranoid and

too analytical. >> you can get paranoid and have disorganized thinking and disoriented. it can lead to panic attacks or anxiety attacks in people. >> how do you know when you have done too much? >> simple tasks become frustrating like mixing paint and then sort of get into this state of dah, you know. >> and why that happens is what columbia university neuroscientist is investigating. research subjects smoke marijuana and take a variety of cognitive tests. >> disruptions in memory and cognitive functioning. they're temporary but pretty pronounced and they are clear. >> it's slowly becoming clear to

scientists what part of the brain is most affected. it's the prefrontal cortex. it's important for planning, thinking, coordinating your behaviors. we think that marijuana can disrupt all of those behaviors. >> an impairment that could be dangerous when driving. >> you may prematurely hit the gas pedal or brakes. you may make a turn without looking more carefully. >> look at this experiment done by cnn affiliate in washington state. subject's smoked marijuana and then drove. one was a daily medical marijuana smoker and another an infrequent weekend smoker. >> relaxed and buzzed. >> the more the user smoked the more trouble behind the wheel.

>> watch yourself. >> but interestingly the habitual smoker didn't have as much trouble. >> that's something i witnessed firsthand driving around with 19-year-old chaz moore. the day i spent with him he had been smoking all day long. >> do you feel impaired at all? >> no. i feel normal. >> turns out when you test people that have a lot of experience with cannabis, you don't see many disruptions but if you test people that have a limited history with cannabis you can see clear pronounced disruptions. >> no one thinks that driving when using marijuana is a good idea but what scientists can't answer is if there is a safe legal limit and if people who use marijuana daily as a medicine should be able to drive. how impaired are they? what is more clear though is the effect of marijuana on the young brain. >> what we see is a very big difference in people who begin to smoke prior to the age of 16

and those that smoke after age 16. what we call early versus later on set. >> gruber's brain scan show the white matter, the highways that help the brain communicate from one to the other are impaired in those smoking early. >> maybe there's connectivity differences. >> that's your concern it sounds like. that the highway, the white matter highways are just more disrupted in people who start smoking early. >> that's what we see. >> perhaps not surprising, given what we know about the young developing brain. >> that's a very delicate time in brain development and that's not a good time to be taking any drugs. >> early on set smokers are slower at tasks and have lower iqs in life and increased incidents of psychotic disorders. and while they're not conclusive some scientists are still concerned because in 2012, 35% of high school seniors lit up and that could mean a generation

of kids with damaged brains. and many fear something else. >> i never really told myself i needed help. >> a generation of marijuana addicts. when we come back, the truth in the science behind what's being called a growing epidemic. and later, charlotte's story. one of the youngest children to try marijuana in colorado. kellogg's® frosted mini-wheats®... have 8 layers of nutritious wheat... and one of delicious sweet. to satisfy the adult.... and kid - in all of us. (supergrass' "alright") plays throughout ♪ ♪ ♪ nutritious wheat for the adult you've grown into. and delicious sweet for the kid you'll never outgrow... feed your inner kidult... with frosted mini wheats®.

>> this was the day chaz moore almost died. pumped full of drugs to quite a non-stop 48 hour attack. >> they thought i was going to overdose and -- yeah it was pretty bad. >> at ahis bedside his father sean watched him go from being catatonic to what he calls high as a kite. >> how high are you on the morphine? >> i'm not high. >> i've watched friends of mine die from taking the same drugs that he took. >> you see sean was a drug addict and he struggled for decades to get clean. >> it was scary. it was really important for him not to take these drugs if he could avoid them. >> if he could avoid them. i know how addictive they are. i've seen it. it scared me. >> but sean is not scared of marijuana. and neither is chaz. >> this right here, i don't get sick off of it. i can't overdose. >> and chaz is right about that. while there are fatal accidental

prescription medicine overdoses every 19 minutes in this country, there are virtually no reports of fatal marijuana overdoses and it's perhaps one of the biggest reasons most people think pot is safe. a new study of children showed that by high school only 1 in 5 think marijuana is harmful. that's the lowest number in less than two decades. and it's something we heard over and over as we travelled around the country. >> not that harmful. >> it has a lot of benefits. i'm not too concerned about it. >> it's safe if you're a safe person. >> but the experts said there is more to the story. >> this are people that compulsively smoke. that want to stop smoking but they can't stop smoking. >> 9% of marijuana users will become dependent. that's not as high as other drugs like heroin.

17% with cocaine or 18% with alcohol but it's still 1 out of every 11 marijuana smokers. >> there's no longer a debate that it's also physically addictive. >> he runs one of the youth substance abuse clinics. the number of marijuana users he treated has tripled. >> marijuana is number one on their list of priorities. they have dropped out of life. >> back in the day i wouldn't feel like my day had started if i didn't get high. >> he started smoking at 13 and by 15 he was smoking more than a dozen times a day. he stopped skateboarding and even dropped out of school. >> i like getting high. i need to get high because my

brain is telling me. >> lessons starting about age 13 have a pretty mature brain reward center so they can experience rewards and pleasures the sail way adults can. but the problem is the prefrontal cortex that helps people think ahead and control their impulses isn't fully developed until age 24. that explains why adolescents are much more vulnerable. there's something else addition experts believe is happening in the brain. when you smoke pot, those that make up marijuana, they cause your brain to stop producing it's own natural canabanoids. when you stop smoking you have none of your own. until your body kick starts production, you feel lousy. so many people smoke again to feel better and today's marijuana could be more

addictive. it has more of the psycho active ingredient thc than ever before. brain researcher. >> if you smoke a very potent marijuana the thc content is going to go fast into your brain at relatively high concentrations and that increases the rewarding effects and likelihood of transitioning into addiction. >> how much stronger is it? >> you see the wire on the fences. >> i travelled to mississippi where marijuana is illegal but here on the campus of one of the country's oldest universities, ole miss, a huge stash of marijuana is under lock and key. >> this is our vault. >> this is pretty tight security. >> he runs the marijuana potency project. for three decades his team

analyzed weed confiscated from drug busts. >> you can smell it. this has a good smell. >> how much does this worry you? 36% thc, confiscated? >> very very dangerous material. for someone that is not experienced in marijuana smoking, take some of this and they're going to go into the negative effects of the high, the psychosis, the irritation, the irritability, the pair knal >> there's no question he has seen a trend. in 1972 the average potency was less than 1% thc. now it's less than 13%. >> are you people becoming more obsessed with high thc marijuana. >> i think so. they start out and get a good high and as they continue to use that it doesn't give them the same high anymore so they seek smoking more or higher points

higher -- material. >> after a couple of years of smoking daily joel eventually ended up in rehab where he faced mild withdrawal symptoms like irritability, insomnia, nausea. >> it's not as dangerous as abrupt discontinuation of something like alcohol. for somebody like joel it's more about learning new behaviors more than treating the physiological dependence or withdrawal issues. >> joel has been clean now for six months but these kinds of risks, they don't scare off charlotte's parents. >> people ask us that a lot. how did you make that decision? it doesn't a decision. it was the next viable option. >> and some would say a radical option. marijuana for a 5-year-old. but it was an option they hope

would change their life forever. >> when we come back, they finally give their charlotte, marijuana. the results are shocking. and i quit smoking with chantix. my children always wanted me to quit smoking but i resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to work. but chantix helped me do it. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it gave me the power to overcome the urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. some people had seizures while taking chantix.

if you have any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix or history of seizures. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these, stop chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. tell your doctor if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, or develop new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. i'm a non-smoker. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you.

hey, i heard you guys can help me with frog protection? sure, we help with fraud protection. if there are unauthorized purchases on your discover card, you're never held responsible. you are saying "frog protection"? fraud. fro-g. frau-d. i think we're on the same page. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. fraud protection. get it at discover.com ♪ if you want a paint with no harsh fumes. if you want a paint without harmful chemicals. if you want a paint that's safer for your family, and the environment...

only this can. natura from benjamin moore. paint like no other. >> it was january 2012. afghanistan. about 7,000 miles away from his family in colorado, matt received this video from his wife paige. >> it's horrible seeing these videos when i'm deployed. it was his 5-year-old daughter charlotte seizing. diagnosed with a severe form of epilepsy she was having 300 seizures a week. each attack so severe it had the potential to kill her.

they had already tried dozens of high powered drugs. >> we needed to try something else and at that point in time marijuana was that natural course of action to try. at home in colorado paige searched for marijuana high in cbd and low in thc. remember she didn't want to get her daughter stoned. she found a small amount at a denver dispensary. the owner was surprised that anyone would even want it. >> i said it's funny because no one buys this. this was the general consensus. it didn't have any effect. >> paige paid $800 for a small bag and took it home. i had a friend starting a business and i said can you help me extract the medicine from this bag of marijuana. i measured it wiand squirted it under her tongue. it was exciting and very nerve

racking. >> holding charlotte in her arms, paige waited. an hour ticked by and then another, and then another. >> she didn't have a seizure that day. and then she didn't have a seizure that night. >> did you sit there and look at your watch? >> i thought this is crazy and then she didn't have one the next day and the next day. she would have had a hundred by now and i just -- i know, i just thought this is insane. >> i remember how happy paige was. like it's really working. i can't believe it. that was pretty amazing to hear. >> it had worked. but in just a couple of weeks, the excitement was overshadowed by panic. paige was running out of marijuana and the dispensary didn't have any more of that particular strain. even if there was more, the monthly price tag would have been astronomical. $2,000 and not a penny of it covered by insurance. but then paige heard about the stanleys.

the six brothers and their green house of marijuana that is high in cbd. >> i said oh my goodness. he said i don't know what to do with it. we're trying new things with it but no one wants it. it's not sellable. i said just don't -- don't touch that. we need that plant. >> at first, they didn't want to take the risk of giving marijuana to such a young child. but then they met her. >> tell me about the first time you met matt, paige and charlotte. >> i'm going to get you misty eyed. >> yeah you'll get all of us crying when we start talking about that little girl. >> they hit the jackpot. a steady supply of high cbd marijuana and they only had to pay what they could afford. >> people have called us the robin hoods of marijuana. they say that we sell pot so that we can take care of the kids. and the truly less fortunate. >> charlotte was the first of those kids.

late spring, 2012, she tried the stanley's special marijuana, and again, it worked. >> i can't tell you what that means to us. >> gets you doesn't it a little bit. >> if it doesn't get you, something is wrong with you. she lived her life in a catatonic state. now her parents get to meet her for the first time. what a revelation. >> yeah. >> the child who had had 300 seizures a week was now down to just one every 7 days. >> pitter pat, tiptoe. >> when i first met charlotte, march of 2013, it was one year after that first dose of marijua marijuana. after almost two years on a feeding tube she was now eating on her own. >> yellow. >> she was talking.

even walking. she said please. but these stories, they are not without their skeptics. one of the countries two hospitals in florida states at present there is no evidence that it is effective for the treatment of epilepsy. the american academy of pediatrics also opposes cannabis as does the national institute on drug abuse. >> it is such an amazing turn of events that it can't be a fluke but i do still wonder. >> do you still wonder too, matt? >> no. >> you know it's working. >> it's working great. >> you just look wonderful. >> and charlotte's doctor, allen shackleford also agrees. yet his commitment to medical marijuana has drawn criticism. he's been called dr. feel good. >> how difficult is this for you to talk about as a physician. >> we're conservative as a profession and individuals.

we want more proof and cannabis doesn't have that. >> and it's why he has travelled the world to look for researchers that might have the answers and that took him to the place many call the medical marijuana research capital. israel, it might surprise you but research into cannabis and epilepsy started here in the 1970s with studies that showed it could reduce convulsions in rats. today he is hoping to start clinical trials f >> we need to understand it well enough that they won't be reluctant to at least give it a thought. at least try it. >> and it's not just epilepsy, but researchers in israel are studying a variety of illnesses. when we come back, what they're finding up close, and an amazing look inside hospitals and nursing homes where patients are lighting up courtesy of the israeli government.

if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com this is humira at work ♪ i ride the highway... son begins to play)

♪ i'm going my way... ♪i leave a story untold... he just keeps sending more pictures... if you're a free-range chicken, you roam free. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. ♪ two wheels a turnin'...

as the sun was rising on the ancient city of jerusalem, the final leg of our journey was just beginning. >> there had been some great advances here, and i'm proud of that, obviously. >> dr. boas lev is with israel's ministry of health. here they have pioneered marijuana research. they were the first to isolate thc and cbd decades ago. now the country's ministry licensed 10,000 patients to use marijuana medicinally and has approved more than a dozen studies to treat illnesses like ptsd, pain, crohn's disease, even cancer. >> hopefully this would prove to be the best medication. i really hope so.

we're not there yet. >> the answers might come from places like this. it's a state-run nursing home outside of tel aviv. residents here are using marijuana for pain, loss of appetite, parkinson's disease, and dementia. moshe root is one of those residents. he was 77 when he smoked his first pipe of marijuana. he is 80 now, and he smokes a couple of times a day. it's to help with the pain and the hand tremors caused by stroke. >> it's a mixture of tobacco and marijuana. >> he even decided to light up during our interview to stop his hands from shaking. >> you are saying your hands are steady because of the marijuana? >> it also helped ease a deeper pain hidden from sight. you see moshe is a holocaust survivor. when his wife died a couple of years ago, he was haunted by nightmares of his childhood hiding from the nazis.

the marijuana, he says, took him out of the darkness. >> you dream. you fly. >> when you smoke? >> yeah. >> there are 19 other patients here. scientists at tel aviv university are now studying their progress. they call the results outstanding. including weight gain, improved mood, pain and tremor reduction. but i can tell you as a doctor it was my next stop that proved the most surprising. this is israel's largest hospital, sheba medical center. he is using marijuana to help him with the pain and nausea from chemotherapy. >> filling up the spoon. so that's your medicine inside there. >> you want to take it out? >> and he's doing it inside the hospital. >> how are you feeling? >> relief. first of all in the muscle in

the leg. >> and you're not worried about any potential damage to your body? >> not at all. the opposite, actually. i really believe i can be cancer-free for a long time if i continue, you know, consume cannabis. >> yes, he said cancer-free. very early studies on mice in israel, spain, and the united states are now showing the potential of marijuana to kill cancer cells. it's exciting research, but it is still in its infancy, and it's inconclusive. this program at sheba is well established, and experts say a teaching tool for using marijuana in other hospitals. >> do you think this could happen in the united states? >> i don't know that there's yet enough really concrete evidence of cannabis's benefit that's satisfactory.

at least in that context. i think it's going to come. >> but it could be slow going. >> the fda has been great at approving studies. but national institute of drug abuse has been really stonewalling and blocking any studies looking at therapeutic effects of cannabis, because that's not their mandate. their mandate is to look at the harms of drug use. >> it's very easy to blame an organization. >> dr. nora volkov, who is the director of nida says they are not standing in the way. she claims they are not the only government institute that approves marijuana research. >> if you would come up with a grant that says, okay, this is going to be a treatment for drug addiction, then go to us, but if it's cancer, it goes to the cancer institute. if it is schizophrenia, it goes to imh, the institutes have a mission with certain diseases. >> what is clear, there are bureaucratic hoops that most researchers simply don't want to jump through. neuroscientist carl hart. >> there are not many people studying marijuana.

it's very difficult to get approved to study marijuana. >> what's nice about israel is that the government is helping the research to happen. >> and it's research that could give hope to patients like charlotte figge. scientists in israel are learning that marijuana use might actually protect the brain, not damage it. >> they've been able to show that it can decrease the amount of brain damage from head injuries in mice. >> right. to be able to give a medicine after the injury to reverse some of the damage, that's huge. >> i want to paint my nails. >> you want to paint your nails? i'll paint your nails. >> i literally see charlotte's brain making connections that haven't been made in years. it's almost seeming to build her brain where before it seemed broken. >> and while scientists are still at the early stages of knowing if this is actually happening, i can tell you it was remarkable to see her progress.

in the three months since we first met her, we saw a change. she was now talking more. >> say puppy. >> puppy! >> yay! >> she's horseback riding. >> good girl. >> she even rides a bike on her own. and the special strain made for charlotte is now named for her. it's charlotte's web. >> it is charlotte's plant. >> it's charlotte's plant. not anymore. now it's for all the children. >> more than 41 children are using charlotte's web here in colorado. all of them are reporting significant seizure reduction, and on a wait list hoping, praying that a plant could change their lives. just like it did for charlotte. >> i'm going to get you. >> you both seem very at peace. >> i'm very at peace, yeah. very peaceful. >> we've been given a great life. it's unfortunate that charlie has this gervais syndrome, but thank god we've got something now that's working. >> she's doing so great today.

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac. www.vitac.com >> the following is a cnn special report. ♪ in his documentary "weed" -- >> you've looked at the evidence. >> there's real science out there. >> a year-long journey that changed what many of us thought about marijuana, myself included. >> i think we've been terribly and systematically misled. >> we used to only picture this. then we showed you this. medical marijuana treating seizures, pain, dozens of other ailments. >> charlotte is doing amazing, better and better each month. >> but we learned this wasn't the end of the story, it was just the beginning. >> i think we went from about 150 calls a month to over 4,000.