A true example of a living hell on Earth.

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One of our teaching institutions, McLean Hospital, was studying a pharmaceutical-grade version of cannabis called Marinol (dronabinol in its generic form) to treat agitation precipitated by advancing dementia. Marinol could possibly have a calming and soothing effect without many of the risks carried by pharmaceuticals typically used in patients with end-stage major neurocognitive disorders.

We felt a personal connection to this research. Both of our grandmothers are survivors of the Holocaust, and during the pandemic, we compared stories about their faltering health and declining memories. During this period, Aaron’s 96-year-old grandmother, Marian Miklin, a very stoic personality throughout her life, began to display the same kind of severely agitated behavior that we had studied so meticulously during our geriatric psychiatry fellowships.

Most notable were Mrs. Miklin’s flashbacks. In the final months of her life, she began reliving unimaginably painful memories from Auschwitz and the Nazi labor camp called Starachowice—memories she had suppressed for nearly 80 years. She would yell out for her parents and siblings who were killed in the early 1940s, and she would confuse her medical team and family members for Nazis. Most traumatizing was that she confused her phlebotomist with the notorious “Dr. Mengele,” who had tortured her at Auschwitz, begging him to stop taking her blood. Her condition seemed unresponsive to commonly prescribed medications for dementia, and Aaron’s family wondered: Could cannabis help her?

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