Around 17,000 people in the UK are now thought to have received legal medical cannabis for a range of conditions including chronic pain, depression, insomnia and Parkinson’s.
Stress, anxiety and panic disorders are more widely diagnosed now than ever before.
As many countries are pushing for more cannabis research, one topic that often comes into question is “how can cannabis help with anxiety?” Interestingly, people with cannabis experiences will answer this in two contrasting ways – either it does wonders or it induces paranoia.
Is cannabis really good for people struggling with mental illness?
The popular opinion is that it is. Whether you suffer from anxiety or have faced your battle with depression, cannabis is often crowned the miracle medication.
Epilepsy is a chronic disease characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. Up to 30% of children with epilepsy will be refractory to standard anticonvulsant therapy, and those with epileptic encephalopathy can be particularly challenging to treat.
Cannabis use for medical purposes has become increasingly common, including as treatment for mental health disorders such as anxiety. Unfortunately, the evidence examining its use in mental health has been slow to evolve, but is emerging.
There is an increasing interest in the medical use of cannabis, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain. The aim is to evaluate the effects of cannabis use and the associated benefits reported by patients with various chronic pain diagnoses. Our study suggest that Cannabis therapy, as an adjun- ct a traditional analgesic therapy, can be an efficacious tool to make more effective the management of chronic pain and its consequences on functional and psychological dimension. Further randomized, controlled trials are needed to confirm our conclusions.
Preclinical and clinical studies suggest that cannabidiol (CBD) found in Cannabis spp. has broad therapeutic value. CBD products can currently be purchased online, over the counter and at Cannabis-specific dispensaries throughout most of the country, despite the fact that CBD is generally deemed a Schedule I controlled substance by the U.S. Consumers are using CBD as a specific therapy for multiple diverse medical conditions-particularly pain, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders. These data provide a compelling rationale for further research to better understand the therapeutic potential of CBD.
Cannabis is a useful botanical with a wide range of therapeutic potential. Global prohibition over the past century has impeded the ability to study the plant as medicine. However, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has been developed as a stand-alone pharmaceutical initially approved for the treatment of chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting in 1986. The indication was expanded in 1992 to include treatment of anorexia in patients with the AIDS wasting syndrome. Hence, if the dominant cannabinoid is available as a schedule III prescription medication, it would seem logical that the parent botanical would likely have similar therapeutic benefits.
Minnesota’s medical cannabis program is unique, in that it routinely collects patient-reported scores on symptoms. This article focuses on changes in symptom severity reported by patients with cancer during their first 4 months of program participation. Patients with cancer enrolled in Minnesota’s medical cannabis program showed significant reduction across all eight symptoms assessed within 4 months of program participation. Medical cannabis was well tolerated, and some patients attained clinically meaningful and lasting levels of improvement.