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Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

sciencedaily.com

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Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#51

Post by [deleted] »

Aurornis wrote: post #31
andoando wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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 ce…

[deleted]

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#52

Post by tapoxi »

altmanaltman wrote: post #44
andoando wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

But I don't think we've seen cannabis, especially when not smoked, have anywhere near the health risk of alcohol.

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#53

Post by zug_zug »

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.

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#54

Post by adi_kurian »

LPisGood wrote: post #38
lokar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Of course alcohol is depressive.

“Depressant” refers to its impacts on nervous system activity, not that it causes feelings of depression.

Worth noting that it very much can cause feelings of depression, also.

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#56

Post by andoando »

Aurornis wrote: post #31
andoando wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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 ce…

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

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#57

Post by jzb »

andoando wrote: post #25
Aurornis wrote: post #12

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, b…

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

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.

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#58

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

Aurornis wrote: post #16
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #8

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…

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 ef…

> 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.

Re: Study finds no evidence cannabis helps anxiety, depression, or PTSD

#59

Post by malfist »

LPisGood wrote: post #38
lokar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Of course alcohol is depressive.

“Depressant” refers to its impacts on nervous system activity, not that it causes feelings of depression.

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

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