Despite some pretty misleading headlines out there about this new study, the main takeaway from research done by a group in Australia is that more robust research needs to be done.
The study is the largest review of past research ever done on the subject. What it found is that there is basically no good research out there that could solidify marijuana’s benefits for mental health issues. These include anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression.
However, the results were slightly better for insomnia, autism, and tourette’s syndrome.
When the authors say these studies are low quality, they point to issues like studies not having a control, having a very small sample size, and biases in the data.
This isn’t surprising, considering how difficult it’s been to conduct high quality research while cannabis has been under Schedule I. If things do end up changing and marijuana moves to Schedule III, there will most likely be large influx of new research all at once. But until then, things remain at a trickle and nothing definitive can really be said about the benefits of marijuana to our mental health.
Read the study over at The Lancet.
