Parents of children diagnosed with autism recently sat in the ballroom of suburban Chicago hotel listening attentively as a renowned neurologist extolled the benefits of using cannabis to treat the disorder.

During his May 25 speech, Ronald Aung-Din, M.D. made clear that non-psychoactive Cannabidiol, or CBD, was a viable treatment for the disorder during his presentation at the AutismOne Conference at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard.

Autism is one of the fastest-growing developmental disorders, affecting 1 in 68 children in the United States. Given that every autism diagnosis is unique, the disorder has been difficult to treat using traditional drugs, according to Aung-Din.

“The pharmaceutical industry has not met the needs of some of these patients, and as a traditional physician I was very much dependent on pharmaceuticals,” said Aung-Din, one of the few doctors in the country licensed to prescribe medical cannabis.

Traditional medications tend to target the symptoms of a condition, but CBD goes after the cause of those symptoms, he said. Pharmaceuticals generally stimulate or block receptors to provide their function, while cannabis-based treatments change or adjust receptors in the brain.

This means CBD can be used to treat a range of disorders, including anxiety, depression and epilepsy — which affects about a third of people diagnosed with autism.

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