0 north korea with dennis rodman and other former nba players. we'll ask him about the media firestorm and what he hoped to accomplish in north korea. >> that's coming up at 8:00 right here and you can stay tuned for sanjay gupta right now. >> see you at 8:00. welcome to sgmd. i want to tell you about this as if knitting new poll about one of the move divisive issues today. it has to do with marijuana. more americans told cnn that that's good rather than bad, but most said let's hang on a minute and see how it goes. we're talking like places like colorado which just passed a new law. i have done a lot of reporting on this topic and had some surprises and concerns and one of them is about the people who want easy access to marijuana as a medical treatment. back in september of 2012, 3-year-old landon developed a sore throat one night. it was likely just a virus, doctors thought, but the reality ended up being much worse. acute leukemia. or a.l.l.. it's one of the most common cancers in children. it's also one of the most treatable. but the therapy is going to be tough. >> they started him on chemo but he only had an 8% chance to live 24 to 48 hours. >> the chemo made the boy very sick, nauseated, vomiting and barely able to walk or talk. his mother wanted to try anything to help. and eventually found medical marijuana. now again, landon is just 3 years old. they'd come from utah where medical marijuana was not legal to colorado where it was. for landon it seemed to work. he rebounded, able to eat, sleep, just be a kid. but sierra told us something else. something surprising. she believed that the marijuana was healing him. not just from the ravages of chemo but from his cancer as well. >> i think chemo and cannabis put him in remission and cannabis will keep him there. >> to be clear, a.l.l. is one of the most curable cancers. but still sierra was so sure of marijuana's healing properties that six months after her son started the treatments she decided to stop his chemotherapy all together. her argument, the chemo was too toxic and the cannabis was not. she said the doctors were stunned at her decision. >> the options were to either voluntarily agree to the chemo and steroid plan for the next three years or to refuse it and which they would take it us to court ordered any way and the possibility of them removing landon from my care would come into play at that point. >> how is it going? >> so she found a lawyer willing to take on the case. >> they said they were willing to work with us. they said they were willing to alter the chemo plan. they did not do that at all. >> that's not surprising. while many mainstream doctors support the use of cannabis to offset the side effects of chemo, as things stand now, no doctor would recommend cannabis instead of chemo, myself included. but there's a growing body of promising research. dr. julie holland is the author of "the pot book." >> it turns out it fights the cancer itself. >> you're a doctor. you have talked to researchers. you're saying marijuana can kill cancer cells. >> i'm saying that and there are many other researchers saying that too. >> we have samples from our treated mice. >> like san francisco researchers, pierre and shawn mcalister who said they have seen firsthand what the cannabis compound can do. in their lab, they use cbd to kill mice and human cancer cells. we asked the american cancer society about all of this. in a statement to cnn, they said there's no available scientific evidence from controlled studies in humans that cannabis can cure or treat cancer. even landon's doctor who prescribed his marijuana and is a firm believer in marijuana is caution about this. >> she decided to stop the chemo therapy for landon. as a doctor who has seen his progress, is that something you would be on board with that you would recommend? >> as a physician, i'm not sure that i could recommend that to a parent to say, you know, i can't say to them i know that the cbd is a treatment that can work and you don't need the chemo. >> for time being, she's afraid of losing her son so she's allowing chemotherapy once a month. she's still trying to find an oncologist willing to take landon off the chemo. so far she's had no luck. colorado is one of 20 states plus d.c. that now has medicinal marijuana. but it's also one of two states where adults over 21 can use it just for fun. recreationally. that does bring up a whole other set of health issues. joining me to talk about this is stacey gruber. good to see you. i know you have been following a lot of this news carefully. there's a new poll that says 88% of the country supports legalizing medical marijuana. but i'm curious when you see a story like the one we just did, what do you think of them? do you think there's a potential for backlash? >> i think anything is possible. i think it's certainly a compelling argument for a parent to want the very best for their child. i think medicinal marijuana has a number of tremendous utilities and applications as we have seen. the question is once medicinal marijuana becomes more widespread and or recreational marijuana is legal across the country as it's becoming, what do we expect will happen with use rates and specifically with regard to our research what happens to emerging adults and adolescents with regards to their use. >> i want to ask about that. some of it is trying to look at history and trying to predict what's going to happen to usage. according to the colorado law, you have to be over 21 to buy marijuana. you have to buy from a licensed vender. we did this poll and asked if that's a model for the whole country. 33% yes. 29% said no. 37% say let's wait and see how it plays out. what do you think? first of all, let's look at the age. 21 and older, you specifically look at the impact on brain development. what do you make of that age of 21 being the cut off? >> during development, lots of things happen to the brain. it's unfortunate that we don't have a definitive time at which we know the brain is finished developing and it's clear you can do whatever you'd like. while the brain is developing the frontal cortex is the last to come online. and to be fully developed. the most important for things like regulating impulsivity, we already know that lots of emerging adults have difficulties making good decisions or not being impulsive. if you add to that different types of drugs or alcohol, it's going to be more difficult to behave appropriately. and what we have seen is some longer term impact in terms of brain structure and function in people who start smoking early versus those who started smoking later. we like to say it's worth the wait. just give the brain time to develop before you get into this. it's an important thing to be mindful of. that's the focus of the educational efforts or should be these days. >> and i think facts matter in this discussion, which is part of the reason we wanted you on the program today. thanks so much for joining us. thank you for being part of our documentary as well. >> absolutely. >> up next we'll talk about this epidemic that you may have heard about. we'll tell you it has an increasing concern. a headline this week caught it's all you need to reach polamalu levels of scalp and hairness. check it. ♪ [ male announcer ] head & shoulders for men. with seven benefits for a flake-free scalp and great looking hair. even if you wear a helmet for a living. i know. 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[ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. ♪ explaining my moderate to severe so there i was again, chronic plaque psoriasis to another new stylist. it was a total embarrassment. and not the kind of attention i wanted. so i had a serious talk with my dermatologist about my treatment options. this time, she prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps to clear the surface of my skin by actually working inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. make the most of every moment. ask your dermatologist about humira, today. clearer skin is possible. a headline this week caught my attention. some of us here found it surprising. the producers of this show certainly did. it said that teens who sext are more likely to engage in other sexual behaviors. as a father myself, i wanted to know what this was all about and how i could influence my own kids to do the right things. so i decided to invite sex educator and author logan medcough on to the program. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> i know you're not an alarmist. put my fears at ease here. what exactly did the study show? >> the study was 410 at-risk youth in rhode island. so it's not representative of middle schoolers at large, but it does give us insights. a little over 20% of those 12 to 14-year-olds have engaged in sexting of some kind and it makes them four to seven times more likely to be engaging in other sexual behaviors. this isn't a huge shock, but the headline makes it very scary. but i'm here to alleviate some of your fears. we have a tremendous opportunity to help our kids through this and help them make good decisions when it comes to sex and technology. >> people become are more acquainted with the term sexting. other stories have put it in the public domain. i sort of thought to myself is this kind of like when we were kids passing a note in class or a seemingly harmless flirtation of a wink or a wave and sexting is that for this generation or is this more sinister? >> a little bit of both. i have trouble with the word sinister, but it's not really a surprise that young people use whatever they have available to them to express their sexuality. i certainly did it. we had the chat lines that cost a fortune and your parents would get billed later on as a nice monthly surprise. we sent these wild and graphic things on those chat lines in an attempt to safely navigate our sexuality. it didn't have the long-term outcomes that sexting can have because once it was out there, it couldn't get into anyone else's hands. sexting does that which changes the game. so it's not a surprise that young people want to find ways to express their sexuality. it's just that this is not the greatest way to do it. >> one of the things you told me in previous discussions is you have to be clear when you're having conversations with your kids regarding expectations. how do you have that conversation? and how young is too young? >> it's never too young to have any of these conversations. our kids know what technology is. my son who is 8 asks if he can post things to youtube. first of all, no. and here's why. our culture provides us endless opportunities to engage in conversations with our kids. but i think that if you're going to give your child a smart phone or any kind of technological device, you need to spell out and maybe it's having some kind of contract with them. i will not use my phone to send pictures of myself or others engaged in compromising positions. i will get people's consent before i post a photo of them. spell it out clearly. and then your kids know what your expectations are. and that means if someone asks them to do something, they are going to go back and say, uh-oh, this was one of the things that was not okay. >> i have an 8-year-old as well. and we had that exact same conversation about posting videos to youtube. they were dance routines or things that she had been learning, but it's really important. a lot of parents think about this quite a bit. i want to let people know that you've got this great book coming out next month about this very topic. the doctor mom's guide to sexuality, social media and other adolescent behaviors. available for pre-order now. i have three girls, as you know. the wisdom you have is something that i think about and crave all the time. >> thank you so much. i appreciate that. >> thank you for joining us. you may know him as the rough and tumble patriarch of the orange county choppers family. what you probably don't know is he's also a recovering addict. >> reporter: grinding, blowing things up and building bikes, that's what paul tuttle senior does best. but there was a time that his future didn't seem so bright. >> kind of started early drinking and getting high. back then you think that stuff is going to go away as you get older. it gets progressively worse. >> reporter: as a young guy, he and his buddies hit the sauce early and often. >> i could drink a quart of whiskey at lunchtime and then go back to work. >> after years of giving everything to alcohol, he realized it all came down to a simple choice. live or die. >> i was pretty fortunate that i was able to get a 12-step program. i went nine years straight and i was afraid to miss a meeting. >> reporter: he's now been sober for 29 years and continues to share his story. >> after a couple years being myself, everybody knows that how [ bleep ] crazy i am. it's no secret. it's kind of like i was looking at if i can get sober, anybody can. >> the season finale of "orange county choppers" airs this weekend. coming up next, the author the best selling "eat this not that" will stop by with some good news because it's about food we all crave that can help you lose weight. stick around.