An employee sorts freshly harvested cannabis buds at a medical marijuana plantation in northern Israel on March 21, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Nir Elias/File Photo.

JNS.org – A new Israeli study shows that more than 80 percent of children with autism-related symptoms who took cannabis oil enjoyed moderate to significant improvement in their condition.

A six-month study at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva found that 30 percent of patients reported significant improvement and 53.7 percent of patients reported moderate improvement regarding symptoms such as seizures, tics, depression, restlessness and rage attacks after taking the cannabidiol-rich treatment with an addition of 1.5 percent THC on a regular basis.

The study, funded by medical marijuana firm Tikun Olam and titled “Real Life Experience of Medical Cannabis Treatment in Autism: Analysis of Safety and Efficacy,” tested 188 teenagers on the autism spectrum between 2015 and 2017.

After treatment concluded, 66.8 percent of patients said they had a good quality of life, compared to the 31.3 percent who identified their lives as such prior to the report, and 63.5 percent said they were in positive moods, as compared to 42 percent prior to the beginning of the study.

The authors lauded the success of the study and said they want to move on to double-blind placebo-controlled trials.