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Elderly people suffering from severe cognitive impairment lack therapeutic options. In this context, a Geneva-based medical facility specialized in the care of elderly patients has launched an experimental treatment based on cannabis oil. This experimental treatment is part of a clinical pilot study, which also includes a sociological component.This article does not cover the medical effects of this treatment but focuses instead on its unforeseen symbolic and relationship-based effects. This article is based on thirty-one semi-structured interviews with twenty-two family healthcare proxies.The article’s first finding is that the patients’ family members express the need to socially reconsider their relatives, whom they perceive as being excluded from society. The offer of medical cannabis treatment fills this role, given the social and historical imagery this treatment is associated with.The article’s second finding is that, following the introduction of medical cannabis, families observe physical and behavioral changes, which they place at the center of the relationship with their relatives. While the perceived effects highlight the fragility of the family-relative relationship, they also simultaneously provide newfound support to this relationship, which had been weakened by the relative’s illness, and eventually describe the reshaping of family-relative relationships.