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Comment by spcebar | Hacker News Reader

So the study is actually called "Development of an anxiety disorder following an emergency department visit due to cannabis use" and you can check it out here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...

The study isn't establishing a direct link between cannabis and anxiety, it's looking very specifically at anxiety diagnoses following an ER visit. The findings are interpreted in the study as the following: "ED visits for cannabis use were associated with an increased risk of having an incident healthcare visit for an anxiety disorder, particularly in young males."

What exactly that means on the broader context of cannabis use isn't the focus of the study, but it invites further research to explore the implications of their findings.

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I know a family with some sort of genetic disposition to anxiety disorders. Every generation up until recent times had at least one functioning alcoholic in it. The second to last was the beloved family matriarch, not the black sheep. Trying to drown out the maelstrom.

It’s called self medication, and people have a sense of when something is wrong with them without a doctor telling them (or for that matter, believing them). Neurodivergent people know this especially well, since “all in your head” was the ultimate dismissal of medical complaints up until the last decade.

Might as well study hospitalizations for stimulants and tendency to impulsiveness and intrusive thoughts. People with ADHD have been self-medicating with stimulants since the trade routes brought tea and coffee ( and probably with beer and wine before that).

I maintain that the original motto for Coca Cola (with real coca leaves) was a nod to high functioning ADHD customers. The Thinking Man’s Drink. Most measurable gains in cognitive ability from mild stimulants are enjoyed by the neurodivergent. But if we are 10% of the human population, that’s a demographic even Apple could love.

This begs the question, which is whether self-medication with cannabis makes anxiety worse, rather than better, for most people who try it. It might, or it might not, establishing to what degree the correlation is causal is fairly important.

I'd guess that it makes it better at first, worse in the long run. Depression and anxiety are known Cannabis withdrawal symptoms, so it seems like drinking to cure a hangover. There's a great Huberman episode on Canabis/THC.

> Huberman episode on Canabis/THC.

You mean the same episode where he claimed that something like 25% of pregnant mothers use Cannabis without providing any sources?

I'm not saying Huberman has to be right about everything, but I think he just cherrypicks too many studies, sometimes overestimates the value of animal research, and, once in a blue moon, just completely makes up stats to fit his narrative.

His on wikipedia page even says,

> Huberman has promoted anti-sunscreen views on his podcast, saying he's "as scared of sunscreen as I am of melanoma", and claiming that sunscreen molecules can be found in neurons 10 years after application; without providing any evidence.

I think his intentions are good, but I sometimes question his intentions when he never fails to mention that you can also use the code Huberman to get 25% off your first order of Athletic Greens.

I specifically referred to this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCbqfBAhmPY. I do not recall him talking about pregnant mothers using Cannabis. Do you have a source (video link, ideally with timestamp) for that?

If you can find the full episode, and not just the clip you provided, the timestamp is at 02:14:08.

Let me know if you are having trouble finding the full video. I do not want to search it at work, so I cannot link it now.

Huberman is the joe rogan of people who think reading a dozen inconclusive studies solves life's mysteries.

So Joe Rogan minus 11 studies?

I can tell you from experience that it is exactly that. It depends quite a bit on the variety and dose but overall, this is how it feels.

When you take it, everything is great, the next day there is the leftover that makes it a "chill" day but then it slowly goes away and anxiety comes back stronger the following days. At 3-4 days you deal with withdrawal a bit depending on how much you consumed which may increase anxiety or not depending on factors (experience, current situation, etc). I would say you get back to baseline after about 5 days to a week, which is quite long!

Cannabis probably doesn't cause anxiety on its own, but definitely do not really help the case for anxious people, in the long term. Unless you want to consider being "high" every day and for quite long. So, using cannabis to treat anxiety is a pretty bad idea but from my point of the view the biggest problem is the cognitive performance penalty you get from using cannabis and the problem is largely compounded by the fact that you do not feel that way at all when you are under influence or after (up to 2 full days after in my experience). Yet I can attest that the impact is very real, and it is quite easy to demonstrate if you have high level activities where you can collect stats (video games are great for that).

Cannabis and anxiety definitely have a relation, but it is really not the principal concern to have. I wish it would be legal everywhere so people could talk about it openly...

It could be, it also could just be that desperate people are drawn to a drug that's illegal but less 'illegal' in the court of public opinion than other drugs.

It's probably both.

Personally, if I went into an already mildly anxious situation (like going to work or driving, etc) pot would make me more anxious. At the end of the day, it made me less anxious and helped me unwind. It also helped me focus on coding when I was working on my own projects and/or learning. It's been a long time since I've indulged since I don't live in a free state, so it might be different now that I'm older.

Talking about the ADHD thing, there's a similar problem with some research that claims stimulants cause Parkinson's disease. The study authors didn't seem to account for the fact that people with more severe ADHD would be more likely to be treated with stimulants and that severity of ADHD could instead be the causal factor.

Going to an ER after taking cannabis seems like something only someone with an existing anxiety disorder might do.

A more accurate headline might read: People with anxiety disorders who take cannabis may unnecessarily visit the ER.

> Going to an ER after taking cannabis seems like something only someone with an existing anxiety disorder might do.

Twenty or thirty years ago, I'd have agreed with you on this, but potency that's normal today wouldn't even have been a dream back then. If you think that makes no difference, I'm here to tell you you are wrong.

You both are correct, I've seen it countless times. Folks sometimes don't admit even to themselves how insecure and anxious they are. And THC will highlight that, sometimes a bit, sometimes massively. Same with alcohol, other drugs, intense stressful situations and so on.

If you are not anxious, this is no story, this won't bulge even after decades of copious consumption (some very close folks fall here and only here, no exception ever heard of).

Now if you are completely clueless or just a (again clueless) kid and say eat 5 space cakes to show off, yeah this will not be a nice story. 5-10 hours of catatonic despair will leave some mark, but this id self-inflicted harm due to stupidity, many wonderful harms and deaths have been caused by very same thing and if we want bans due to that, alcohol should be the first in line by huge margin.

Educate from childhood, regulate (age, potency, how much daily, optimize for harmless consumption of quality products without impurities), but otherwise let folks do their thing. Anything else leads long term to worse results for whole society, any gut feeling is easily beaten by long term statistics.

My father in law gets super paranoid and anxious on weed and LSD but he will never admit it because he wants people to believe that he's completely chill

Man, I wish my father-in-law was using LSD with me!

Oh, it's nothing anyone can't get through with a little help from someone who can take a broader perspective. That's a lot harder to come by these days than should be, or at least than is healthy for primates as social as we. Stronger communities would yield fewer such ER visits, too.

I don't advocate a ban; Prohibition is a salutary example and it would be worse today for all involved. But I also don't like to see anyone talk about any drug, and certainly not this one, as entirely benign.

I constantly see this, but haven't people been making concentrates for 1000s of years? I imagine ancient Nepali hash would probably rock a lot of people's world still to this day.

Sure, but Nepali hash was being taken in a much different cultural context (religious, often) by people who were generally very prepared for its consequences.

The problem I have with studies like this is that the implied scoping really distorts any conclusions that could be drawn. People who don't go to the doctor - by definition - don't get diagnosed with anything.

Finding causality is hard and this study has so many hidden confounders that even implying causality from weed to anxiety disorder is bullshit.

Anecdotally, the only people I know that ended up in ED due to weed either took it unknowingly or have Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome from heavy heavy usage. Surely someone with a tendency for anxiety is more likely to seek medical help.

I know cannabis smokers who have anxiety issues, but it isn't obvious whether their tendency for anxiety leads them to smoking. I'm ignoring temporary anxiety. Disclosure: not a pot smoker.

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