Marijuana Use Tied To Lower Rates Of Depression

Individuals afflicted by post-traumatic anxiety disorder (PTSD) who have marijuana experience considerably fewer manic episodes and reduced levels of suicidal ideation when compared with non-users, according to another study.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology on Tuesday, examined nationally representative health information from Statistics Canada’s 2012 Community Health Survey and found that individuals with PTSD who haven’t reported past-year marijuana usage are way more likely to have suicidal ideas and undergo depressive periods.

One of the more than 24,000 individuals who had been eligible for the analysis, together with was conducted by investigators in the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use and University of British Columbia, 420 were diagnosed with PTSD. Of these, 106 people with PTSD (28.2 percent) said that they used cannabis in the last year. That is markedly greater compared to the average of people who don’t have PTSD (11.2% ).

“But, this is actually the first time which results in a nationwide representative survey have demonstrated the potential advantages of treating the disease with cannabis.”

People afflicted by PTSD who did not report past-year cannabis use were roughly seven times as likely to have undergone a new significant depressive episode, the research discovered. They were 4.3 times as likely to have considered suicide.

Though the study only looked at Canadian respondents, the findings are related to U.S. patients also, as members of their army stateside also experience higher rates of PTSD in contrast to the overall populace.

A former secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), David Shulkin, has stated lately that he is in favor of getting the division conduct clinical study to the curative advantages of bud for veterans with PTSD, saying that the suicide rate among the populace demonstrates that blowing off the treatment option comes in the”peril” of support members.

While VA failed to encourage research initiatives to cannabis for medical conditions which commonly afflict veterans under his leadership, Shulkin reported this week that the section”needs to be involved and needs to be amenable to search for anything which helps veterans improve their own lives, such as medical cannabis.”

“We are only just starting to comprehend what the therapeutic potential of cannabis could be for many different health ailments,” M-J Milloy, senior author of this new study, stated .