Depressed? Smoke Marijuana: THC and Depression

As reported Wednesday by Rolling Stone, a recent study published in the peer-reviewed academic journal European Neuropsychopharmacology has shown that ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (otherwise known as THC) has significant effects on the human brain’s endocannabinoid system and can specifically reduce the brain’s response to negative stimuli.

From the abstract: 

“After THC administration, performance accuracy was decreased for stimuli with a negative but not for stimuli with a positive emotional content…These results indicate that THC administration reduces the negative bias in emotional processing. This adds human evidence to support the hypothesis that the endocannabinoid system is involved in modulation of emotional processing. Our findings also suggest a possible role for the endocannabinoid system in abnormal emotional processing, and may thus be relevant for psychiatric disorders such as major depression.”

What does this mean? That THC can, indeed, scientifically proven in a study, reduce depression and elevate mood.

This is obvious great news for those seeking treatment for depression, anxiety, and…wait, wait a second.

This isn’t news to anybody other than those who still believe that marijuana has negative effects and should remain an illegal, schedule 1 narcotic.

Not only have more states that not decided to legalize medical marijuana, but also two of those states are gearing up to sell it to all adults of legal age for recreational use, just like beer.

My point here is that, why stories like these are great to see appearing mainstream media, the actual facts have been known to so many of us for years. The last several weeks have seen many high profile stories (looking at you, Dr. Gupta) about how marijuana can actually be beneficial and isn’t actually very harmful, it’s starting to become a situation where the only thing left we really have to say is: “How much proof do you need?“