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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

#131

Post by temp0826 »

Working with ayahuasca for several years in a traditional (Shipibo) context has showed me just how bad cannabis can be- it is more difficult to clean out of the body (energetically/spiritually) than any other drug. It creates so many associations in our mind- memories, relationships, pains, emotions, etc.. When "on the path" (meaning, apprenticing and learning how to work with ayahuasca), it really needs to be cleaned out for useful visions to open up (to work on other people) and to be able to cleanly connect to and call in the medicinal spirits/doctors (through the icaros/songs). It can really blunt dreams, intuition and senses.

(Yah this probably sounded woo-woo, but I am speaking from a different, non-western context/lens that views this as a spiritual malady. So take that as you will)

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

#132

Post by stego-tech »

This is not entirely surprising, as the evidence was always weakly correlated. I say this as a proponent of legalization, mind you.

Cannabis, like alcohol and tobacco, is a vice. It definitely helps with some physical ailments (like helping stimulate hunger in cancer patients), just like alcohol and tobacco can with other ailments, but it’s not a panacea for mental health disorders.

We need to stop marketing these things as curatives when they’re mostly just coping mechanisms or social lubricants. We’re doing more harm than good by leaning into the “legitimate pharmaceutical” angle.

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

#133

Post by harimau777 »

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…

I mean, aren't they effective treatments?

As someone who has had depression literally as long as I can remember, being able to releve my symptoms when I really need it, even for just an hour, would be life changing.

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

#134

Post by varispeed »

Millions of people use it because it helps them, but trust some edgy scientists who say nope it doesn't.

These gaslighting studies are unhelpful. For me cannabis has been life changing, no more pain killers and I live very much pain free. But I read studies claiming cannabis doesn't help with pain.

Then you'll have anti-drug crusaders taking these headlines and abuse people for whom cannabis made massive positive difference.

To those scientists: Go fuck yourself.

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

#135

Post by zozbot234 »

johnisgood wrote: post #96
dpark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair point but there’s also truth to the fact that “I feel better” does not automatically mean it’s an effective/good treatment. Lots of depressed people turn to alcohol to provide a mood lift. But you can’t be drunk all the time and function, and when the alcohol wears off you feel even worse. So it’s a terrible treatment. People talk a lot about cannabis like it’s a great treatment for all kinds of stuff.…

> “I feel better” does not automatically mean it’s an effective treatment. Of course, I agree with that. I also agree that you cannot be drunk to function, but there are many other "drugs" that people would oppose that do not make you dysfunctional. Personally I would not use cannabis because I know that it makes me dysfunctional, but it may not be the case for some people for all I know. FWIW I take opioids for my c…

Alcohol is so terrible, especially when severely abused, that "better than alcohol" absolutely cannot be a meaningful standard for being a proper treatment.

> there are many other "drugs" that people would oppose that do not make you dysfunctional.

People oppose these drugs because they do tend to make you dysfunctional, at least when abused. And when people are severely depressed, the depression itself makes it more likely that they will abuse their drugs.

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

#136

Post by harimau777 »

phainopepla2 wrote: post #32
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

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.

Shouldn't that be up to bodily autonomy? If someone feels that cocane relieves their symptoms then who is the doctor to say that they don't. Perhaps releaving those symptoms even for a short period of time is worth the consequences.

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

#137

Post by varispeed »

cluckindan wrote: post #95

”The findings are based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of 54 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted worldwide over a 45 year period (1980-2025).” This review seems dubious considering the huge gap in motivations and scientific rigor between 1980 and 2025.

That's classic with most cannabis studies. They sound like they started with a conclusion and then worked their way back fitting the data.

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

#138

Post by entropie »

billfor wrote: post #10
entropie wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive overdosed edibles multiple times and I dont know what you talk about.

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...

The fact that someone had a negative reaction to an overdose has nothing to do with how (properly dosed) THC/CBD affects unhealthy (and healthy) people.

Many substances can be overdosed on, even though they may not be harmful - or may even be beneficial - in appropriate amounts.

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

#139

Post by zug_zug »

roywiggins wrote: post #91
zug_zug wrote: post #53

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…

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. "The error bars are too big to say it works, so we shouldn't tell people it works" is a pretty good thing to inform people about if that's the case. It's really eas…

> The data being all over the place on benefits, but pretty clear on harms

Uhhh... no? Did you even read it? This research actually found more benefits than harms. I see it only identified two harms both graded very low.

Let's just quote here the researcher's own conclusions:

"Interpretation There was some evidence that cannabinoids can reduce symptoms of cannabis use disorder, insomnia, tic or Tourette’s syndrome, and autism spectrum disorder, but the quality of this evidence was generally low. Cannabinoids were associated with a greater risk of any adverse events but not of serious adverse events. Overall, there is a crucial need for more high-quality research. Given the scarcity of evidence, the routine use of cannabinoids for the treatment of mental disorders and SUDs is currently rarely justified"

>>> "The error bars are too big to say it works, so we shouldn't tell people it works"

I can see you didn't really understand my comment. There's a huge difference between not saying something is proven to work, and saying it's proven not to work. This study falls in the former category, by the authors own words.

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