A new study published this week has found that there is little evidence that cannabis is an effective treatment for several mental health conditions and called for more research on the use of cannabinoids for psychiatric care. A report on the research was published on Monday in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.
For the study, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of medicinal cannabinoids in clinical trials studying depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychosis. The research team identified 83 studies involving 3,000 participants that had been conducted between 1980 and 2018 for inclusion in the meta-analysis.
The authors of the study wrote in their interpretation of the analysis that there is little evidence that cannabinoids improved the patients’ conditions.
“There is scarce evidence to suggest that cannabinoids improve depressive disorders and symptoms, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, or psychosis,” they wrote. “There is very low quality evidence that pharmaceutical THC (with or without CBD) leads to a small improvement in symptoms of anxiety among individuals with other medical conditions.”
The study’s authors also called for more research on psychiatric uses for cannabinoids, noting that proper guidance for such treatment was impossible without it.
“There remains insufficient evidence to provide guidance on the use of cannabinoids for treating mental disorders within a regulatory framework,” they added. “Further high-quality studies directly examining the effect of cannabinoids on treating mental disorders are needed.”
Professor Louisa Degenhardt of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW Sydney, Australia, the lead author of the study, cautioned practitioners against recommending cannabis before more research can be done.
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