UK Study Finds Cannabis Provides Sustained Improvements In PTSD Patients
Global researchers estimate that nearly 4% of the planet’s total population suffers from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is one of the most common mental health conditions around the world.
Common treatments for PTSD include different types of trauma-focused psychotherapy as well as pharmaceutical medications. Many of the pharmaceutical medications used to treat PTSD can yield undesirable side effects.
A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom examined medical cannabis therapies and PTSD. Below is more information about the study and its results via a news release from NORML:
London, United Kingdom: Patients with post-traumatic stress report symptom improvements following their use of cannabis, according to observational data published in the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids.
British researchers assessed the use of THC-dominant cannabis flower in 58 patients with post-traumatic stress. (Since 2018, British specialists have been permitted to prescribe either cannabis or cannabis-based medicinal products to patients unresponsive to conventional medications.) Researchers assessed changes in patient-reported outcomes measures at three months and at six months.
Participants, on average, attained a 16.8-point reduction in their symptom severity scores following six months of cannabis treatment. Patients also reported significant enhancements in general health, mood, and sleep quality.
The study’s authors concluded: “Results from this observational study suggest an association between treatment with THC-predominant cannabis flowers and symptomatic improvement for up to six months in a cohort of UK civilians diagnosed with PTSD. The treatment was safe and well tolerated and characterized by marked effects on quality of sleep, general mood, and severity of PTSD-associated symptoms. … However, further research is needed to evaluate the long-term safety and outcomes of controlled inhalation of CBMP in patients naïve to cannabis.”
Other observational studies assessing the use of cannabis products in patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry have reported them to be effective for those suffering from chronic pain, anxiety, fibromyalgia, depression, migraine, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Full text of the study, “Controlled inhalation of tetrahydrocannabinol-predominant cannabis flowers mitigates severity of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and improves quality of sleep and general mood in cannabis-experienced UK civilians: A real-world, observational study,” appears in Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids. Additional information on cannabis and post-traumatic stress is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis & Cannabinoids.