Autism clusters in California

I'll tell you why autism has spiked. It's just a theory, but I've seen "clusters" like this in my area too. I have family from certain areas where many, many kids are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. And one cousin of mine now has TWO autistic kids.

This cousin is/was a huge friggin' POT SMOKER. So is his wife. They're the hippie-dippy Grateful Dead/Phish concert types. Other people I know with autistic kids... same deal, I knew them in college and they were pot smokers.

My brother is a pot-head, and his kid is borderline.

Most pot smokers I've talked to all tell me the same thing. That in the last 2 or 3 decades, pot has become super-concentrated compared to the pot of old. It's been bred to have resin that's higher in the high-getting chemicals that act on the brain.

I'm seeing more and more autistic kids as GenXers procreate. In their kids I see the Hand-flapping, bad language skills, weird behavior, and even sometimes that totally world-of-their-own flavor of autism. Others flip out over nothing like Rainman. And I hate to say it, but because I know their parents personally, know their history, and know how much pot they smoked, I have drawn this conclusion. But suggesting this is like completely politically incorrect.

It's like saying that there's no such thing as man-made global warming. Pot is supposedly this all-natural harmless product that should be legalized.

So you heard it here first. It's clear as a bell to me. I double-dog dare a study to prove me wrong. I'd bet money on it. I'm no scientist, but I say here and now that Pot smoking parents, one or both, increases the risk of autism in offspring. Period. Not maybe. My evidence is all personal experience, but hey.

It cracks me up that they're saying that whiteness and education has anything to do with it. Nah-ah. Whiteness and college means friggin' POT!

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But suggesting this is like completely politically incorrect.

It's like saying that there's no such thing as man-made global warming. Pot is supposedly this all-natural harmless product that should be legalized.

Bingo. Oh, yeah. That would be politically incorrect. The storyline on pot was already chiseled in Ten-Commandment-like stone in "Reefer Madness." Pot is harmless and any opposition to it makes you a square. But this is an area that we no more have to rely on cultural attitudes for the truth than we do to find out whether man-made CO2 is a problem, cigarettes or booze are harmful, or whether the earth is older than 6000 years. We can rely on facts and evidence and I'll be quite interested in hearing about any reliable scientific studies about pot smoking possibly increasing the rate of autism.

One of my cousin's sons has some form of autism. Is there a polite way to ask "Are either or both of you pot heads?" I don't think they are. I understand from a couple of books by Temple Grandin and some articles I've read that they're making much progress in treating kids with autism. It sounds like it takes a truly Herculean commitment from parents, but by working with kids (almost always boys) you can really bring them out. I think there are a few drugs that help as well.

Someone is actually saying that whiteness and education has something to do with it? Oh, the lengths some people will go to protect their precious fantasies. If it turns out there is some connection between pot-smoking and autism, it will be interesting to find out what that connection is. Most likely the mother's smoking messes with the normal development of the embryo in some way. But maybe father's sperm cells are messed up in some way. Maybe the infant and baby growing up in clouds of pot smoke effects their brain. Maybe pot-smokers commonly are doing some other kind of drug that is the problem. Or you could have some kind of correlation where people who are somehow prone to autism tend to want or need the calming effect of pot. I suppose that's possible.

Oooo...perhaps another blown myth. New Study Finds Spanking is Good for Kids: “According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were more likely to carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers who had never been physically disciplined.”

Obviously beating the living crap out of a kids isn't good for them, but it makes sense that a little discipline — as opposed to namby-pamby belly-rolling in the face of child temper tantrums — would help snap kids out of a narcissistic, completely self-centered view of the world.

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Yet there is a larger truth about these contradictory studies: in reality, you can find research to justify any position you might take. This is why we must never, in the name of “science,” dispense with what G.K. Chesterton called “that forgotten branch of psychology”: common sense.
Thus, while I believe in corporal punishment (I like a soldier who knows how to maintain discipline) and am sympathetic to Gunnoe’s study, I’ll be consistent and say that the most obvious interpretation of it is insufficient to reveal the truth. For instance, the failure to spank your children is not just a difference, but a symptom. People who won’t lay hand or switch on bare bottom embrace a completely different parenting philosophy than those who will.

The difference is not just that they won’t apply the rod — it’s that they lack what I call a “rod mentality.”

That is to say, to such parents, discipline is often a dirty word. They tend to be overly permissive, set poor examples, be inconsistent in moral guidance and not teach responsibility. They are unlikely to view themselves as absolute authority figures but, rather, will treat the family as a democracy (without a constitution). They are more apt to want to be buddies than parents to their children.

The rest of that article was pretty thought-provoking as well. I'd say the proper use of corporal punishment is the "get their attention" spank as opposed to the "my boss chewed me out at work today so little Johnny will bare the brunt of my aggression." Namby-pamby liberal parents are not all wrong in regards to trying to tame their aggression. It's just that they tend to go too far in the other direction (that's not news) and in the process make errors that can be as bad or worse.

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One of my cousin's sons has some form of autism. Is there a polite way to ask "Are either or both of you pot heads?" I don't think they are.

I'd bet they are. Are they white and did they go to college? LOL.

Lest we forget, that in this culture, for a lot of people pot is related to the sex act. I mean this is really common. Many people who don't smoke pot regularly at all, still take a recreational toke before getting it on. It's more common than you think.

And who knows, with this super-pot, if it has some impact on the fetus. I do know that piss tests for pot can detect the substance far longer than other drugs which exit the system more quickly. All I know, is if I were a scientist, I'd be either getting mice high right now, or interviewing every parent of an autistic child for marijuana use prior to conception. In my family and circle of friends, where there is a lot of friggin' pot heads, autism is definitely the rule rather than the exception.

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I'd bet they are. Are they white and did they go to college? LOL.

She's from a major liberal West Coast city not a stoner's throw from wear I live. He just doesn't seem the type. But he is white. He did go to college. He's therefore suspect to be another case of reefer madness.

I'm often accused of being obnoxious, single-minded, and anti-social so it could be my parents were secret stoners. By I'm the result of Winstons and martinis, if anything.

Yes, I'm the same way, we were separated at birth... but you are too high functioning verbal to be autistic... did you talk late?

I talked really early, read and wrote really early. Showed artistic aptitude really early. Actually, where I'm from in New York, because of the accent... when my italian relatives would say "he's artistic" it SOUNDED like they were saying "he's autistic."

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did you talk late?

No, but it's interesting to find out that one of Thomas Sowell's children is a late talker. But verbally I was pretty normal. I showed no prodigy characteristics. But I tended to constantly invent my own games. To me that was just what "play" was. If I ever used a toy for the purposes it was meant for, I don't recall. I'm sure I was stubborn early-on. I had a bullshit detector developed fairly early. I had to just to verbally defend myself from arbitrariness hiding as something else. Our juicy chess club brains are capable of many fabulous things, but our verbal skills were surely refined and developed for verbal jujutsu. Words can convey meaning or they can be used to obfuscate and manipulate, and all in the purpose of political, social, and economic power. We very often do the latter.

I think I would have done better as an autistic because then I could have sort of walled off the world a bit. Part of it were really nutty. And yet the more you come to know other people, their stories typically are far more horrific. It is very difficult to maintain a picture in one's head of either a good god or a good human nature. It makes the good stuff all the better by contrast. And what choice do we have? Who wants to approach life like Saul Alinksy where, because you may have had it a little tough, you're going to bring down the entire rest of the civilization in some kind of adult-like temper tantrum? This has been ritualized and encoded into leftist politics.

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No, but it's interesting to find out that one of Thomas Sowell's children is a late talker

Do you know if brother Sowell has occasional attacks of the munchies?

Well, he does say he was a self-ascribed Marxist in college. Do Marxists smoke pot?

There you go.

My theory got some more validation today. Another pot-smoking cousin of mine telling me about strange behavior in his daughter. Really bizarre long-duration temper tantrums. I said, "has she been tested for autism spectrum disorders?" He goes uhhhh, what are those? Maybe he should put down the weed long enough to google them!

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Does your Child...

● Not speak as well as other children his/her age?

● Have poor eye contact?

● Act as if he/she is in his/her own world?

● Seem to “tune out” others?

● Not smile when smiled at?

● Seem unable to tell you what he/she wants, and so takes your hand and leads you to what he/she wants, or gets it him/herself?

● Have trouble following simple directions?

● Not play with toys in a usual way?

● Not bring things to you to “show” you something?

● Not point to interesting things or direct your attention to items of interest?

● Have unusually long or severe temper tantrums?

● Show an unusual attachment to objects, especially “hard” ones, such as a flashlight or key chain, instead of “soft” ones, such as a blanket or stuffed animal?

● Prefer to play alone?

● Not pretend or play “make believe” (if the child is older than age two)?

And do you, as parents, prefer the whacky tobaccy?

Scientific American

California mom: Marijuana saved my autistic son from 'wasting away'.

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● Show an unusual attachment to objects, especially “hard” ones, such as a flashlight or key chain, instead of “soft” ones, such as a blanket or stuffed animal?

That reminds me that I use to have a whole army of stuffed animals.

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● Prefer to play alone?

These days, yes.

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● Not smile when smiled at?

I really wish I didn't have to smile when smiled at sometimes.

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● Seem to “tune out” others?

My older brother is the Obi wan Kenobi of that.

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● Have unusually long or severe temper tantrums?

Does breaking a cheap PC keyboard because of losing at some game count?

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You linked to that Scientific American article and I expected it to read "New Study: Autism Linked to Global Warming." I was a bit surprised when it didn't.

From the "feed kids pot to calm them down" article:

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"My son had self-injurious behaviors," she told He was extremely aggressive, he would run out of our house," she said. "He was a danger to himself and others."

I wonder how many mothers think their sons are defective simply because these mothers have no idea how little boys – even healthy ones – behave. When the standard is girlish behavior, well, I have a nephew who is sick, sick, sick. He's "extremely aggressive" (aka, we wrestle all the time...he loves doing that.). He will "run out of the house." (What normal kid likes staying indoors all the time and doesn't like to run?) "He is a danger to himself and others." Yeah. No kidding. When we're fighting with sticks (they are make-believer light sabers), if you're not watching, he can get you pretty good.

The war against boys extends to giving perfectly normal boys Ritalin because the new standard of behavior for boys is for "normal" to be judged by what is normal for girls.

Listen, I know there are cases of hyperactive kids. But we're in real danger of diagnosing many kids as medical misfits when the problem lies elsewhere. I was talking to a good friend last night. She was telling me about her sister's son. He sounds like the kid described in that article. My friend told me that her sister rarely handles the kids. She doesn't read to them. She doesn't help them with their homework. She hardly disciplines them. And this kid typically is bouncing all over the place. And so this kid will go to school and be diagnosed as "hyperactive" when the fact is that some dumb-ass single mother has not idea what a real boy is like, and to double the problem, there is no father there to act like the gatekeeper for too much aggression. And, in fact, this one kid has been kicked out of two day care centers for his behavior. Just drug him. Let him smoke pot. That will solve it all.

Yeah, really, the wussification of the American male continues.

It's also about the self-involvement of the American female. Notice how things like children, men, etc. become nothing more than an INCONVENIENCE to the needs of the woman. This idea that life is about personal need fulfillment is a feature of this postmodern culture.

"Self-injurious behaviors"... um, which is code for these behaviors worried ME, and now I have to deal with that, and it's all about me me me.

Anything that doesn't reinforce the idea that American females are the center of the universe is going to be considered by them to be defective.

If a kid doesn't provide constant emotional support for his mom... friggin' DRUG his ass. If a man doesn't, divorce him.

I think I told you about my eye-rolling neighbor with kids who is constantly pestering her poor kids with endless expressions of emotional neediness like "mommy needs a hug." She barters with them incessantly for tiny expressions of affection. It's really disgusting. But it's not unique. I see it everywhere in this culture.

It's pandemic arrested development. It's emotionally stunted child-adults, who have been brainwashed into believing they are victims and meeting their needs are the job of everyone around them.

These people become what I call BLACK HOLES. They suck the life out of everyone around them. It all goes into this giant vortex and nothing comes out. You don't teach a kid to say "thank you" because it's polite... you teach him to say thank you because fucking MOMMY needs reinforcement, validation and gratitude.

In the same way that Cesar Millan shows that the behavioral problems with dogs are all about the emotional neediness of the dog owners, the same is true of kids. Our kids are being browbeat constantly with this sick, topsy-turvy idea that they have to behave in ways that will keep the PEOPLE WHO SPAWNED THEM from having emotional meltdowns. Kids have to endure emotional bartering, blackmail, and all kinds of really dysfunctional crap. And yeah, I gotta admit, it's mostly LEFTIST crap. Because that whole mindset was born in Progressive philosophy.

Progressivism makes pussies. It's that simple.

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Notice how things like children, men, etc. become nothing more than an INCONVENIENCE to the needs of the woman. This idea that life is about personal need fulfillment is a feature of this postmodern culture.

I think it moved. Personal need? No problem. Pursuing that and honoring that is what helps keep us in a freedom-based capitalist system rather than one where personal need is demonized and called selfish. Personal need drives the markets and drives true progress. Contrast that with any kind of collectivist state where "personal need" is subordinated to the needs of "society." It's considered wrong to put yourself first, to pursue what YOU want. The difference between good and bad "personal need" is whether one is willing to pay the costs for it. When we pursue "personal need" and are a crack whore while the kids are abandoned, that's personal need run amok. When we pursue "personal need" and drive the economy into trillions of debt from our cry-baby entitlements, that's personal need run amok. If you want a boob job or butt tuck and are willing to work to pay for it yourself, then more power to you. If your "personal need" is to work your ass off so that you can have every color of iPod, then more power to you. But if you expect someone else to pay for your "personal needs," you're just a parasitical socialist masquerading under the Orwellian term "social justice" or "equality." If your "personal need" means you forget that the prime function of a parent is to serve the needs of children then parenting may not be your thing. Buy a bigger mirror...but don't ask me to pay for it.

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If a kid doesn't provide constant emotional support for his mom... friggin' DRUG his ass. If a man doesn't, divorce him.

Oh, god, I really do think you have capture the sort of "personal need" me-me-me that is the province of The Silly People.

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I think I told you about my eye-rolling neighbor with kids who is constantly pestering her poor kids with endless expressions of emotional neediness like "mommy needs a hug." She barters with them incessantly for tiny expressions of affection. It's really disgusting. But it's not unique. I see it everywhere in this culture.

You're describing my mother to a large extent. She may be slowly learning, but she expects to be able to suck affection out of her grandkids. I keep telling her that you have to somewhat meet them halfway. You have to give THEM some affection first and they will return it, usually in spades. That's pretty much how life works. When you go about expecting to vacuum affection from the world, you have put yourself in a Lordly or Queenly mindset. It may be out of some kind of discomfort with intimacy that some do this, but many do do this and become demanding and come to expect to be given something that they themselves will not give.

I think a lot of Yuppie parents have grown up with really whacked expectation of what life is. Anyone who raises kids quickly learns it's not about "me me me," although, as by some of the examples you point out, many parents try to keep up that fantasy. But dirty diapers, constant puking, and 3 a.m. feedings will whack much of the arrested-development child out of adults, at least in theory. No wonder so many babies are aborted or just dumped in the gutter.

Progressivism makes pussies. Damn. It's probably too late to copyright that for a bumper sticker.

Mama thalo was pathologically self involved and vain, but never needy. Consequently, she produced me, and I was pretty independent as a kid. Those were the days where all a parent really did was let the kids loose in the morning, and yell for them to come inside in the evening. She never used me to fill emotional needs. She basically BARELY wanted the responsibility of kids. She thought we were interesting and cute, like pets. But my sister and I were more outdoor pets than indoor ones. We just ran wild. We needed some light care and feeding, that's about it.

She's much more affectionate in her old age than she ever was as a flower child hippie.

Regarding kids and affection. I sort of barely tolerate kids, and I'm convinced that's why I am their friggin' pied piper. Kids love me. They want to hang around me. And I'm fairly mean to them. I tell them to get lost. Maybe that's a tactic your mom can use. Child psychology, because it's scary... rugrats don't leave me alone for a second. They hang on me like little monkeys. Sometimes it's sweet, but usually it's annoying. Strangers' kids in the grocery store stare at me, say hi to me, little babies point at my face. One asian kid, about three, sitting in the shopping cart seat, started chattering on to me about Batman like I had known him for years. Thalo power. His mom looked at him like he was high. All I was trying to do was navigate around him and continue shopping. I even said to the kid, really? The batarang comes back? Welll... OK, gotta go shopping now, bye! And he kept hurling batman facts at me as I wheeled down the aisle. It was funny. I get WAY more affection from children than I want, and I demand ZERO from them, I don't hassle them. The needy should take note.

As I've speculated before, I think it must be that I'm a silverback alpha. Imposing size, so some primate thing kicks in where the little ones feel safe around me. It must be from the day when the alpha lent stability to the little troop of homo erecti or whatever. The younglings could blather away in relative peace and security if the big male was watching over them.

I heard again about marijuana being a possible cure for symptoms of autism. And I just had to laugh. To me, that's a proximity argument... where the supposed CURE for something, is in fact the CAUSE of the original problem. I really do think that's a human nature thing. And it certainly works for problems with big government and the like.

I wonder if we could also extend some of this to the supposed spike in attention deficit disorders, depression, and so forth. Does anybody ever wonder if the prevalence of anti-depressants actually causes depression? There's certainly clinical evidence that some side effects of the drugs are things like, um, SUICIDE.

Even something like Ambien. Supposed to be a sleep drug. Side effects: sleep walking, sleep driving, sleep eating... AND NO MEMORY OF THE EVENT.

Maybe it's just my suspicious and skeptical nature, looking for the con-job everywhere... but I do think there's a cause/cure corollary that might be a bit unexpected and uncomfortable... certainly not politically correct... in certain instances.

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I wonder if we could also extend some of this to the supposed spike in attention deficit disorders, depression, and so forth. Does anybody ever wonder if the prevalence of anti-depressants actually causes depression? There's certainly clinical evidence that some side effects of the drugs are things like, um, SUICIDE.

You might have something there. I would say there is ample evidence (such as the growth of our own musculature) that the little stresses we get here and there tend to strengthen us. If we try to mask ourselves from every little bump and bruise, we may turn ourselves into wimps and basket cases who can't handle anything. It's a mirror of our culture and why it is friendly to Marxism/socialism. We want every little bump in the road smoothed out...either by drugs or by government. As I've said before, we've become a Silly People.

Britain Bans doctor who linked autism to common vaccine.

Imagine what they'd do with MY theory, that it's related to marijuana use.

In my mind, the evidence keeps building, and yet it's going to be the one thing that everyone on the left will refuse to believe. The fashion right now is to use medical marijuana for autism and ADHD... that only tells me that the parents of autistic kids had marijuana on their minds before having an autistic kid. And they have such blinders on, being pot lovers, that they can't see that the drug is probably CAUSING the conditions.

Why do I know that a study will NEVER get done on this? I can't even tell you how many people I know who are utterly mystified about the seeming rise in autism... who then turn around and say, uh, can you watch our autistic kids? We need to go to a Widespread Panic concert. Honey, don't forget the rolling papers.

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In my mind, the evidence keeps building, and yet it's going to be the one thing that everyone on the left will refuse to believe. The fashion right now is to use medical marijuana for autism and ADHD.

What's interesting about that is that we have just gone through (and are still going through) a huge episode where the answers that science could find were restricted by politics and sociological kool-aid. Forget the actual evidence, you were a Philistine, in the pockets of the oil companies, a despoiler of the environment, and a bad person if you didn't unthinkingly suck down the whole global warming scam. We are living more and more in the Age of Anti-Reason where entire lines of thought and reasoning are taken off the table for reasons that have nothing to do with reason but have everything to do with ego, conceit, politics, fascism, and hysteria.

I do not find it even a little difficult to believe that scientists and others will refuse to even look at the possibility that marijuana is harmful. It's the politically correct drug. Remember: "Refer Madness" taught the hip and the beautiful that any resistance to marijuana was the result of squareness; just like resistance to socialism means you're a bitter clinger to guns and religion, etc.