A Family’s Search For Alternatives

In an online interview, Lee says that she believes “We were the first family to use cannabis for autism. Our son was nine, he’s 26 now. He was extremely violent. He was being kicked out of all schools, and the ultimatum came down to us that we either had to give him psychiatric drugs or have him kicked out of school.”

“And for me, I’m also a science writer, and when I was doing some research on the drug they were trying to give him, Risperdal,” she continues, adding, “it has a black box warning, and it also shows that it’s not very effective. So, I was starting to get desperate to find something that might help him, that would not endanger his life.”

Lee’s informed research led her to cannabis, which she believed could help calm his tendency to be overloaded by stimuli. At the time, both Lee and her husband were teaching at Brown University in Rhode Island, a state that had recently launched its medical marijuana program. With the support of local advocates and Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatrist, Harvard University associate professor and cannabis researcher, Jason became the youngest patient in Rhode Island to be granted a medical marijuana card.

Lee also connected with a cannabis grower, who helped her experiment with different strains to find a formulation that worked for Jason. Eventually, their experimentation paid off.

“He had this pretty transformative experience where instead of getting high, he would just kind of get to be pretty balanced and normal enough that he could function,” Lee explains.

From Personal Experimentation To Product Development

A move to New York meant that Lee could no longer work with the grower who had been helping her, forcing the family to scramble to find a new source of medicine for Jason. Lee was able to find commercial products that helped Jason get by, although the results weren’t as good. Eventually, she connected with Wiseacre Farms in Massachusetts.

Using lower-THC landrace strains of cannabis paired with expert traditional whole‑plant infusion by Howls, Lee helped develop the formulation that worked best for Jason. Together with Wiseacre’s master cultivator Jon Piasecki, and Howls’ founder Peter Glantz, the team created Spectrum to preserve the integrity of the plant while amplifying its therapeutic potential.

“It’s landrace strains, so it’s not THC-forward. It has a very broad cannabis profile, and it has a ton of plant terpenes too,” Lee says. “The terpene profile of this has such a balancing ability.”

Each batch of Spectrum is rigorously tested for purity and cannabinoid and terpene composition, with no pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, artificial fertilizers, solvents, additives or common allergens. The new tincture has “demonstrated consistent benefits for sleep, anxiety, sensory overstimulation, and emotional regulation, areas of particular importance for individuals on the autism spectrum,” Insa wrote in a statement about the launch.

Outcomes, Access And Market Positioning

Once Jason’s new regimen was established, he began using a spelling board to communicate, something the family had been trying to use without success for years. Today, he is in community college in New York and has written an article about some of the deadly challenges faced by non-speaking autistic people that was published by The Nation.

“Spectrum has been a bridge for us to go from Jason’s… healing to him becoming a more independent person by spelling,” says Lee. “Now we can actually take him on a plane.”

“I’m not saying it’s a panacea, but it has made a very, very huge change in our lives, in our son’s life,” she says.

Spectrum is now carried by Insa dispensaries in Massachusetts, including locations in Avon, Salem, Easthampton, and Springfield, giving families of autistic people and other medical cannabis patients new access to the formulation. Spectrum donates 10% of its profits to Communication 4 All, a leading organization dedicated to teaching non-speaking autistic individuals to communicate through typing.

“We felt confident standing behind the Spectrum brand and the quality of that product. And then I think when you marry that with the power of the story,” Insa CEO Peter Gallagher explains in the same online interview. “It’s incredible to have someone that’s gone from being nonverbal to now in community college. That’s a story that, honestly, the world should hear.”