[HN Gopher] No evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD
___________________________________________________________________
No evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD
Author : nothrowaways
Score : 106 points
Date : 2026-03-21 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencedaily.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedaily.com)
| int32_64 wrote:
| It's good to see science confirm what anybody who has
| accidentally taken too large of edibles dose understands.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Huh? Like Paracetamol doesn't work because if you take too much
| you die? Are you confusing "overdosing" with something else
| here maybe?
| entropie wrote:
| Ive overdosed edibles multiple times and I dont know what you
| talk about.
| billfor wrote:
| Well how do you know if you overdosed? What else happens
| besides anxiety and paranoia? Some of the reaction may be
| genetic, but I think many people have a negative reaction to
| taking mass quantities of cannabis. I don't know if you want
| to take a poll here but it's pretty common...
| erelong wrote:
| Still ok with it being legal but yeah that doesn't mean it's
| beneficial
| lokar wrote:
| Yep. Of course alcohol is depressive.
| LPisGood wrote:
| "Depressant" refers to its impacts on nervous system
| activity, not that it causes feelings of depression.
| adi_kurian wrote:
| Worth noting that it very much can cause feelings of
| depression, also.
| malfist wrote:
| Tell that to my depression. Back before I got sober days
| after alcohol were certainly some of my lowest mood days.
| Its well known that alcohol impares next day production of
| neurotransmitters responsible for balancing moods.
|
| Now I've been sober for 7 years and my depression has been
| treated, but I certainly remember those days
| illusive4080 wrote:
| In alcohol's case I think you're masking the depression
| by drinking which makes you even more depressed when you
| aren't drinking.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Obviously. It was always just a scam so that people could do
| drugs.
|
| Anyone who knows a weed addict knows that they end up anxious and
| stupid. It actually seems to reduce their IQ while they're using
| it regularly.
| post-it wrote:
| How does your "anyone knows" control for false negatives? i.e.
| how can you be certain that the people you met who _aren 't_
| "anxious and stupid" aren't also weed addicts?
| lokar wrote:
| What's wrong with people choosing to do drugs if it has no
| major adverse effects on other people?
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| The studies cited by this metastudy all suffer from the same
| issue: They aren't studying the cannabis plant at all and even if
| they are, it's not in the chemovars (chemical makeups) that real
| consumers are actually consuming - due to cannabis sourcing
| issues stemming from cannabis's continued illegality.
|
| For randomized controlled trials, even in "legal" states,
| university scientists can't just walk into a dispensary and buy
| cannabis to then administer to test subjects.
|
| That's Post-Prohibition for you.
|
| As far as I can tell, most (EDITED FROM ALL) of the studies
| utilize isolates - and not necessarily in conjunction.
|
| For instance, none of the 6 anxiety studies included in this
| metastudy used THC and CBD together.
|
| The headline could read instead: No evidence cannabinoid isolates
| help anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
|
| Cannabis advocates are the first to mention the entourage effect.
| Cannabis prohibitionists on the other hand, love nothing more
| than to cite incomplete science.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Using quantified isolates is the correct way to do a controlled
| study. Dosing is important.
|
| Claims that you need a special combination of exactly the right
| strains are just a way to move the goalposts forever. They
| could study 10 different strains in controlled trials and the
| same people would show up to dismiss this study because they
| weren't using some random strain that has some perfect
| combination of entourage effect.
|
| Using actual plants and smoking would also introduce another
| major variable, with further claims that the strains they were
| giving patients were too weak or they were smoking it wrong.
|
| EDIT: I don't have time to read every single citation included,
| but the claim above that they were all THC or CBD isolates does
| not appear correct. One randomly selected citation:
|
| > The short-term impact of 3 smoked cannabis preparations
| versus placebo on PTSD symptoms: a randomized cross-over
| clinical trial
|
| So the claim above that they didn't investigate smoked cannabis
| or "entourage effect" is false.
| lokar wrote:
| I think that's a bit of a straw man.
|
| You could study one combination that is broadly
| representative and is much much closer than the isolate.
| Aurornis wrote:
| They included studies which looked at multiple different
| smoked cannabis varieties.
|
| The claim above about only looking at isolates was false.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| Way to completely misunderstand and try in an underhanded way
| to the dismiss entourage effect.
|
| It's not smoking 10 strains in a row it's the fact that you
| need CBD THC and all the terpenes to get the effects. So the
| current growing trend of just getting the THC number higher
| tends to result in plants that don't actually give people the
| full spectrum of effects, beneficial or not.
|
| So the correct way to do this would be a full spectrum
| isolate, which again you coincidently forgot to mention I'm
| sure.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It's not smoking 10 strains in a row
|
| I never said it was. I was saying you could run 10
| different studies on 10 different strains with 10 different
| "entourage effect" profiles and even if all of them were
| negative, they would be dismissed as not having precisely
| the right entourage effect.
|
| If there are anti-depressant compounds in cannabis plants
| then they can be extracted and isolated, too.
|
| > So the correct way to do this would be a full spectrum
| isolate, which again you coincidently forgot to mention I'm
| sure.
|
| Of course, the correct formulation is something other than
| what was tested, right? And if they tested a full spectrum
| isolate with negative results, we should assume that it
| just wasn't the right blend of terpenes and therefore that
| study should be dismissed too? Repeat ad nauseum?
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| That's a great example study to highlight what I really mean
| by entourage effect. I've edited my post to emphasize most
| not all - i only looked at the 6 anxiety studies as that's
| what I have the most experience with - as well as the
| included table which highlighted that the vast majority of
| studies included in this metastudy only looked at THC.
|
| That particular study did look at High THC low CBD, mid THC
| mid CBD, and high CBD low THC. There's no information on the
| terpene profile of the smoked cannabis preparations, though,
| and that is a confounding variable in the entourage effect
| that potentially defeats the part of the entourage effect
| they did test. Additionally, a quick look at the cannabinoid
| %s in those smoked preparations rehighlights my point that
| these are not inclusive of all the chemical compositions that
| the cannabis plant could present itself in.
|
| I still stand by my point and hope the clarifications bring
| the conversation back on track to the fact I was highlighting
| which is simply that this is a metastudy built off of studies
| that were conducted with restrictions on experimental design
| that few observers fully understand the research implications
| of.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| > Using quantified isolates is the correct way to do a
| controlled study. Dosing is important.
|
| That's the correct way to do a controlled study on the
| isolate - not the plant that it comes from.
|
| It's clear to me at least that the authors of the metastudy
| conflate the two and many shades between them for purposes of
| this study.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| >The headline could read instead: No evidence cannabinoid
| isolates help anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
|
| There's no evidence that what they tested with was pure THC
| isolates. If they're using cannabis in plant form, even if it
| was bred for higher thc content, there is still cbd.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Those that are interested to click through should and see the
| studies cited by this metastudy and whether they used whole
| plant cannabis extracts, cannabis isolates, or even non
| cannabis derived isolates.
|
| tldr; "If they're using cannabis in plant form" is a very,
| very high bar for the current state of cannabis (really
| cannabinoid) research.
| post-it wrote:
| Yeah, I noticed this too. Canadian universities have been
| studying cannabis use using actual cannabis, so I'm not sure
| why this metastudy considered anything else. "We need to
| publish _something_ " perhaps.
| sublinear wrote:
| If anything, I think most people _discover_ anxiety with
| cannabis.
|
| It's a shame that first experiences with stress also coincide
| with that phase of life, so the debate never ends.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is a hard topic to communicate in depression treatment. It's
| easy to mistake substances that temporarily boost your mood or
| calm your nerves for effective treatments for an underlying
| condition.
|
| There was a brief period of time before the opioid prescribing
| backlash when some fringe psychiatrists were proposing weaker
| opioids as adjunctive treatments for treatment resistant
| depression. It's hard to fathom now, but opioids were more
| casually prescribed a few decades ago. I recall some discussion
| where one of them said they were seeing good initial results but
| the effects faded, and then it was hard to get the patients off
| of the opioids when they were no longer helping. Not surprising
| to anyone now, but remember there was a period of time where many
| seemingly forgot about their addictive properties.
|
| I feel like I've seen a weaker version of this in some friends
| who turned to THC to "treat" their depression: Initial mood
| boost, followed by dependency, then eventually into a protracted
| period where they know it's not helping but they don't want to
| stop because they feel worse when they discontinue. This wasn't
| helped by the decades of claims that claimed THC was basically
| free of dependency problems.
| wahern wrote:
| > but remember there was a period of time where many seemingly
| forgot about their addictive properties.
|
| There was also quite alot of talk about how doctors, by being
| reticent to prescribe opioids, were inhumanely forcing patients
| to live in pain, and not being sufficiently deferential to
| patient autonomy. Moreover, the rhetoric was incorporated into
| discussions about racist disparities in treatment, given there
| was some evidence doctors were less likely to prescribe opioids
| to black patients, suggesting doctors were systematically being
| cruel. Naturally, the easiest way to dodge those accusations
| was to simply prescribe opioids as a matter of course. Even in
| the absence of Purdue Pharma pushing their claims about lack of
| significant addictive potential, there was already significant
| pressure to discount the risk of addiction.
| andoando wrote:
| This point of view makes no sense to me.
|
| If you take it and you feel your anxiety is lessened, that's
| the greatest proof you can ask for. All the psychiatric studies
| are already based on self assessment.
|
| Second, a lot of psychatric treatments are temporary, ending
| whenever the medication is stopped or wears off so I dont see
| how this would be any different
| Aurornis wrote:
| > If you take it and you feel your anxiety is lessened,
| that's the greatest proof you can ask for.
|
| This mistake has been made many time throughout history.
| Cocaine was originally believed to be a viable treatment for
| depression. Opioids and amphetamines too. You take them and
| you feel good for a while, which was mistakenly equated with
| treating depression.
|
| Many drugs will make you feel good temporarily by blocking
| certain feelings or tricking your brain into feeling good.
| This is not the same as treating a condition.
|
| You can think of actual treatments as working closer to the
| source to reduce the problem, not temporarily overriding it
| with a powerful drug-induced sensation.
| noosphr wrote:
| Alcohol too.
|
| It's not a cure. It's a high.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _Cocaine was originally believed to be a viable treatment
| for depression._
|
| Is it not??
|
| Sure there's the addiction and harm from abuse that make it
| less than ideal for long term use, to put it mildly, but
| weed isn't coke so what's really the argument here?
| andoando wrote:
| How do amphetamines treat the source of ADHD?
|
| Psychiatry as its practiced has no idea as to what
| depression even is under the hood. The entire science is
| based on the patients self reported feelings or the
| psychatrists feeling of how someone else is feeling.
|
| What you're saying is something else, that drugs can
| produce long term harm despite short term improvements
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The entire science is based on the patients self
| reported feelings or the psychatrists feeling of how
| someone else is feeling.
|
| This study is showing that THC, CBD, blends, or cannabis
| do not improve self-reported feelings over the long term.
|
| You can use pedantry and wordplay all you want, but no
| matter how we look at this study it does not show
| positive effects.
|
| > What you're saying is something else, that drugs can
| produce long term harm despite short term improvements
|
| Recreational drugs make you feel good temporarily. That's
| literally why people do them.
|
| They also cause harm when abused.
|
| These are all obvious and well known facts.
| andoando wrote:
| I dont have a problem with the study or its conclusions,
| just the parent post I was replying to.
|
| >Recreational drugs make you feel good temporarily.
| That's literally why people do them.
|
| The point Im making is this is true for a ton of
| psychiatric or even non psychatric treatments. And to be
| perfectly clear Im not saying you should be treating your
| anxiety with weed, even if it does help you
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The point Im making is this is true for a ton of
| psychiatric or even non psychatric treatments
|
| That point wasn't intended to be taken in isolation.
|
| I was making statements about how long-term treatment of
| an underlying condition is not the same as taking a drug
| which temporarily masks a problem or induces altered mood
| states.
|
| The fact that a drug has acute effects, good or bad, is
| separate from any conversation about chronic effects.
|
| For depression, anxiety, and other conditions it's the
| chronic effects that matter. The acute effects almost
| become side effects at that point. For some drugs,
| getting to long-term treatment involves tolerating the
| acute effects while your body adapts
| johnisgood wrote:
| You keep ignoring the fact that what you just said
| applies to current medications used to treat depression
| and anxiety. They do not treat the underlying issue long-
| term, and if you stop them, you are worse off than before
| due to rebound effects, and even if those effects subdue,
| your depression and anxiety returns. And just to add to
| this for clarification, antidepressants may treat
| depression, but it does not cure it either.
|
| Same with amphetamines for ADHD. And yes, if you take
| much more, you will experience side-effects ("cause harm
| when abused"). Opioids are not an outlier at all.
|
| > Recreational drugs make you feel good temporarily
|
| Drugs are only recreational if you take them
| recreationally, there is nothing that makes them
| inherently recreational.
|
| And we have not discussed MDMA, which is considered a
| hard "recreational" drug, yet there are lots of benefits
| for treatment of PTSD, for one, similarly to
| psychedelics.
|
| ... or ketamine for depression, which is now approved by
| the FDA, even.
| j45 wrote:
| As doctors Psychiatry should definitely look at imaging
| of the brain.
|
| One place I'm aware of that works from imaging as well is
| Amen Clinics in the US.
| phainopepla2 wrote:
| Duration of effect matters when it comes to successful
| treatments.
|
| If we take your position and apply reductio ad absurdum, we
| could say that cocaine is a highly effective treatment for
| anxiety, although of course we know that in the not-so-long
| run it has the opposite effect.
| andoando wrote:
| But a lot of psychatric treatments are just that. Treatment
| for ADHD for example is giving ampethamines (which btw are
| chemically no different than a low dose of meth), which
| have a duration of 3-6 hours and its back to worse than
| baseline after the effect has worn off.
| Aurornis wrote:
| There are multiple treatments for ADHD, including alpha-2
| receptor agonists and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors.
| Some of them show patterns of increasing efficacy out to
| a year (the length of the study).
|
| The reason amphetamines are used for ADHD but not
| depression is that they've been studied to show that the
| ADHD improving effect can remain for many months, while
| the mood-improving effect will taper off quickly if you
| take them every day. Almost everyone who takes ADHD
| stimulant, feels a mood and motivation boost ("so happy I
| could cry" is the common phrase) and then is disappointed
| when that mood boost stops happening after a few weeks or
| months will learn this. Attention enhancement is less
| prone to tolerance, though it still accumulates tolerance
| too. There are some studies showing that the effects of
| stimulants in ADHD diminish substantially on a multi-year
| time frame, and it's probably not a coincidence that many
| people (though not all) who take stimulants discontinue
| after several years.
| sillywabbit wrote:
| Meth causes brain damage. Dex doesn't.
| landl0rd wrote:
| Well, it's not that simple. It's reasonable to expect
| that you could see some increased level of oxidative and
| excitotoxicity. It's harder to draw a bright line around
| the dopaminergic system specifically because some level
| of neuronal death is expected over the course of a
| lifetime. We lose 5-10% starting with middle age yet
| don't tend to show parkinsonian symptoms until 60-80% are
| gone.
|
| It's pretty reasonable to expect reversing DAT and
| inhibiting VMAT2 increases oxidative flux, the question
| is really how much not if. Methheads certainly get "brain
| damage", but is nudging the average loss from 5-10% to
| 7-12% "damage"? Is it meaningful? Over 30, 40 years that
| could very well add up.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I think the problem is that, at least in my experience, you
| end up with more anxiety once the initial high wears off.
| Paranoia is an extremely common side effect of Marijuana, and
| so are nightmares with prolonged use. And once you kinda get
| into a routine with it, you have a hard time quitting,
| because your overall anxiety is raised, and you need it just
| to get back to a normal functioning level. My guess is that
| this is due to the effects that THC has on blocking your REM
| sleep. Without the proper REM sleep, it seems pretty common
| to be anxious and foggy-brained.
| altmanaltman wrote:
| Doing ten shots of tequila is a 100% scientifically proven
| cure for social anxiety then. If you take it and your anxiety
| lessens, that's the greatest proof you can ask for! Let's
| just completely ignore the crippling morning hangover and
| liver damage
| tapoxi wrote:
| But I don't think we've seen cannabis, especially when not
| smoked, have anywhere near the health risk of alcohol.
| Shog9 wrote:
| I mean... Yeah. Alcohol is very well documented and even
| more widely used for exactly this purpose BECAUSE it works.
|
| The side-effects are often terrible. This is also true for
| many widely-prescribed drugs, and has been even more true
| in the past. The folks I've known on MAOIs were pretty
| wrecked.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Psychiatric treatments return a person to a baseline that can
| be managed with therapy or healthy coping mechanisms.
|
| Chasing a high is not a treatment, it merely defers the
| problem. As tolerance to the high builds, patients lose the
| therapeutic value but have gained crippling dependency and
| addiction.
| jzb wrote:
| There's a difference between intoxication and treating the
| chemical imbalance behind depression or anxiety. For one
| thing, treatments for anxiety only target the anxiety: they
| don't impair the person the way that weed or alcohol does.
| (They can have other side effects, of course.)
|
| Drugs for anxiety treatment do wear off, but not the same way
| that weed or alcohol does: something like Celexa takes a few
| weeks to build up in the system, and don't lose effect 12-24
| hours later if you miss a dose. I'm not sure how long you'd
| have to stop before it loses efficacy entirely.
|
| I'm not Nancy Reagan, though: I would not advise people to
| self-medicate with booze or pot if they're suffering from
| depression or anxiety, but I'm not going to preach at anybody
| who is doing so and thinks it's working for them. I will say
| that I've seen that end badly, though. I can think of three
| people I'm close to who've tried it and have had problems
| with addiction: all of them are now sober and (I believe) on
| regular antidepressants.
| andoando wrote:
| Im prescribed adderall for ADHD. It is a high. You feel
| more positive, more productive, more forward looking for a
| few hours and its back to baseline or worse when you crash.
|
| As for impairment, it really depends. If weed removes your
| anxiety and lets you relax, its benefit could be greater
| for what youre doing than the impairment it causes. And
| adderall, SSRIs can cause impairment of sorts too.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Yeah this has been my experience with THC. I never took it for
| depression, but it was always a temporary thing. I doesn't
| treat anything IMHO. its a symptom relief at best.
|
| it works pretty good as a temporary relief from anxiety.
| mihaaly wrote:
| But it can cause memory loss, impaired motor coordination, and
| food craving. Also memory loss.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| My initial take from reading the headline was: no shit this is
| what mdma is for...
|
| Tangentially, The etymology nerd in me has been taunted by the
| current article thats been on the front page for the as of now
| last 19 hours[1] which conveniently has the origin of the term
| linked to in the first sentence! [2]... which @suprisetalk also
| links to in the article description!...
|
| So now I'm wondering why mdma has got the street name molly...
| and if they're not perhaps related?
|
| As in molly (aka mdma) has got the name as its used as a guard
| against these ailments specifically...
|
| [1] https://unsung.aresluna.org/molly-guard-in-reverse/
|
| [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/molly-guard
| monster_truck wrote:
| Isn't the lancet the same journal that has published the vax-
| autism and hydroxychloroquine studies?
| Aurornis wrote:
| The Lancet has been around for 200 years. It publishes weekly.
|
| It's a highly regarded journal, but it doesn't mean 100% of the
| papers published are perfect.
|
| If you're trying to dismiss a study because it was published in
| _The Lancet_ then that 's not a convincing line of reasoning to
| anyone who understands the scientific publishing landscape.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| same lancet that tried to bury covid lab leak theories in
| february 2020
| object-a wrote:
| Evidence for lab leak is extremely weak, zoonosis is the most
| likely origin:
|
| https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-
| review-r...
|
| https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/the-case-against-
| the-...
| zarathustreal wrote:
| These dismissals based on the source rather than the material
| are getting really annoying. We're supposed to be intellectuals
| here, we can do better than that.
| haghding wrote:
| me n my quarter brick beg to disagree
| odinthedog wrote:
| Matthew Hill offers a great interview on Andrew Huberman's
| podcast -
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/26PR93gyNcs8YPlQ9dypW3?si=V...
|
| As someone who's used cannabis regularly for over a decade, I
| tried to start to explain in this body my experience but every
| sentence written ends with me deciding, "that's too
| circumstantial to my lifestyle-physiology to include."
|
| I think at the end of the day, empirical research's purpose is to
| get us closer to being able to just make our own decisions
| surrounding mind-altering drugs. Beyond that, cannabis affects a
| great deal of systems in our body concurrent to the rest of our
| environment's effects. Use your autonomy to determine if it's a
| positive or a negative for you. Don't drive fucked up, please.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| This is the most reasonable take I've seen in this whole
| thread. Alcohol doesn't reduce anxiety either yet tons of
| people take it as a social lubricant and it probably does more
| damage to those consuming it than those who consume weed. So
| shrug? Just be responsible folks and let people blow off steam
| how they like without judging it like weed is an 8 ball.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| I see problems with this meta-analysis.
|
| - Not adjusted for strain, dose or delivery method across all
| studies.
|
| - Not adjusted for receptor downregulation, for which rotation
| and/or drug holidays would be appropriate strategies.
|
| - Not adjusted across all studies for time effect, e.g. 6 hours
| of relief, 1 hour, etc.
|
| I can tell you from personal experience with a related disorder
| that disciplined rotation of 10mg edible cannabis provides 90%
| relief, 90% of the time, with far fewer side effects than
| alternative medications for the same disorder.
| jalla wrote:
| So, a meta study. While important, it assumes that the underlying
| studies are based on solid science.
|
| So, why do people use cannabis then?
| malfist wrote:
| Why do people use cigarettes? Cocaine? LSD?
|
| Not because they're effective treatments for mental disorders
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Evidence?
| zug_zug wrote:
| Edit:
|
| Okay, I've read the meta-study now and I think the summary
| article isn't representing the picture very well. In particular
| they found for anxiety there actually seems to be evidence in
| this exact data set that does help.
|
| What they are doing is saying "there isn't 95% evidence it
| reduces anxiety" therefore "no evidence" even though they mean
| "some evidence, just not at the statistical significance level"
| -- it's one of the biggest confusions (and sometimes it feels
| deliberate) you'll see people do.
|
| Also when you have a confidence interval that big it's a red
| flag. They themselves admit the data is all over the place.
|
| In summary, don't assume much from the title of the summary
| article.
| Bratmon wrote:
| I guess if you weren't around for the 30 years when every
| marijuana advocate on the planet wouldn't shut up about it
| being a cure for anxiety, evidence that it is not wouldn't be
| particularly interesting to you.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| > ...evidence that it is not wouldn't be particularly
| interesting to you.
|
| Were you stoned when you wrote that?
| roywiggins wrote:
| The data being all over the place on benefits, but pretty clear
| on harms, is about as good a reason you could want for experts
| not to recommend something as treatment. That's what it often
| looks like when something doesn't work, or doesn't work very
| well.
|
| It's really easy to convince yourself that something works when
| it doesn't, that's the whole reason why people have to take
| statistical significance seriously.
| paxys wrote:
| Title says "helps" but the summary says "it doesn't effectively
| _treat_ anxiety, depression, or PTSD ". Big difference between
| the two IMO.
|
| Plenty of people use cannabis to alleviate symptoms. I don't
| think they expect to be cured entirely. Getting a good night's
| sleep or being without chronic pain for a few hours is often
| enough.
| smt88 wrote:
| "Treat" != "cure"
| roywiggins wrote:
| It's a meta-study and came to the conclusion that there isn't
| reliable evidence that it alleviates symptoms of a bunch of
| stuff:
|
| > There were no significant effects on outcomes associated with
| anxiety, anorexia nervosa, psychotic disorders, post-traumatic
| stress disorder, and opioid use disorder. There were
| insufficient data to meta-analyse studies of ADHD, bipolar
| disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tobacco use
| disorder. There was an absence of RCT evidence for the
| treatment of depression.
| Perenti wrote:
| I've always been suspicious of the claims THC helps anxiety. CBD
| may, but my experience is that high doses of THC without
| corresponding CBD tends to induce anxiety in many people. I also
| found the brief notes in the article about MMJ and autism
| intriguing. I'm diagnosed ASD. I would think the use of THC to
| manage overstimulation could be problematic, as it tends to make
| colors and sounds and flavours _more_ intense. Conversely, indica
| strains tend to slow you down.
|
| DISCLOSURE: I use large amounts of high potency cannabis flower
| with CBD/CBG edibles for intractable neuropathic pain. I also
| smoked a hell of a lot of weed in my 20s and 30s. I've more
| experience of Pot than most. MMJ lowers my pain a bit, and
| reduces suffering a lot. Its the suffering that makes life
| difficult.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| American media has really been shockingly pro weed/cannabis for
| the past 20 or so years. Really astounding to witness considering
| the well known downsides to human health and cognitive function.
| Main characters smoke weed as a cool disobedience, in sitcoms
| even.
|
| Wonder what is behind it, from my perspective it's quite
| remarkable.
| themafia wrote:
| People were smoking weed even when it was socially unacceptable
| and illegal. Then they were going to jail for a decade or more
| because of it. This simply did not make any sense. I believe
| most of this is a backlash effect.
|
| Weed was the worst thing ever. Weed is the best thing ever.
| Eventually weed will be in the same category as coffee.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Because the Schedule 1 prohibition was ridiculous. This is the
| cultural pendulum swing to normalize it and push legalization.
| t-writescode wrote:
| The DARE program just had to tell the truth, but they didn't
| and it made everyone question how bad everything really was,
| if pot wasn't a problem.
|
| Full agree here. Unfortunately, history is what clarifies why
| pot is SO HUGE now rather than being something indifferent
| about, like it should be.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Since the 1960s and the emergence of the New Left, and the
| introduction of the Frankfurt School and 60s post modernism
| into academia, there has been a widespread belief amongst a
| large segment of the population that _everything_ traditional
| is wrong. A social stigma is merely ignorance, that which is
| seen as bad is actually good, traditions are wrong. All of
| these things need to be overturned for the enlightenment. Since
| society deemed marijuana bad, it is therefore good. As those
| people who were went through that indoctrination in the 60s as
| students got older, they got into power. They took power in
| universities. By the 90s they were pushing all of the ideas as
| the status quo. Students in the 90s then took those ideas, and
| when they got into power in Media, they pushed those ideas into
| all movies and tv.
| Loughla wrote:
| Alternate theory: there's a shit load of money to be made
| with legal marijuana so it will be mainstream just to ensure
| those paychecks keep coming. And for media, it's a low
| hanging trope that if you want your character to seen edgy
| but not dangerous, you have them do safe drugs like
| marijuana. It's easier than the weeks of story it would take
| to let the audience know they're just slightly anti
| establishment.
|
| I'm not sure I buy your theory even a little, to be honest.
| The children of the 60's have, by and large, gotten FAR more
| conservative as they've gotten older.
| cj wrote:
| I think it became socially acceptable because there's not a
| huge reason to hate on it.
|
| The risks to cognition and health exist, but they're no where
| near as bad as alcohol or cigarettes (and the negative effects
| basically don't exist at low, even moderate doses)
|
| The biggest negative effect of using weed regularly is it seems
| to slowly kill people's motivation to do stuff over time. It
| will turn just about anyone into a couch potato. That's more
| dangerous than any other effect IMO.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Studying the effects of recreational drugs is similar to studying
| diet in terms of the level of complication. The headline "No
| evidence" is a good example of the discourse about this subject.
| There absolutely is such evidence, but this new analysis comes to
| different, potentially more robust, conclusions from the same
| data. As long as results are presented in this way a meaningful
| shared comprehension of the situation is likely to remain out of
| reach.
| j45 wrote:
| There seems to be more information out there about the effect on
| the brain with cannabis and it doesn't always seem great long
| term.
|
| Might be different for THC/CBD in different ways.
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