I have been feeling rather dismayed and discouraged from the results of the 54 trials. And I’ve been speaking with Claude about this with regards to PTSD and Anxiety. It’s all negative. And makes me feel like the past few years on cannabis has been a lie.
However, I do want to bring up a nuance that has been frustratingly absent. For me, it’s not that cannabis on its own helps with my PTSD or ANXIETY. It’s not like it just magically makes things better. It has always simply turned down the frequency of all negative thought loops, and when I feel safer and more present, I can engage in the actual activities that address the anxiety — speaking more openly with my therapist, speaking more openly with family, allowing myself mistakes when I do creative activities instead of the constant self-loathing.
For years, I’ve tried to incorporate cannabis into my treatment protocol. But I keep coming up against data that is hard to understand. I keep feeling incredible doubt. And there hasn’t been a very clear, clinical way to document or monitor my efforts. So many variables outside of my control have contributed to my condition.
I am not at all interested in promoting cannabis use for the general public. I am not against it either. I just know that it has a specific effect on me that has been hard to qualify. I’ve desperately looked for ways to incorporate my own experiences in a meaningful way, but I keep getting stuck it feels like. I know for a fact it silences the suicidal ideation. I don’t know what mechanism is doing this.
Maybe it is only effective for temporary relief. Or maybe I have developed a dependence on it. It’s hard to say. But I feel like I’m gambling with my health — getting off the cannabis and then getting back on it when there seems to be no other choice to get through the day and experience joy.
I am not a scientist. Or a data expert. This has made life challenging for me. I’m often feeling invalidated. I am a community builder. I’m an artist. I’m a musician. Cannabis has opened up very meaningful frequencies for my art practice. The art practice is what helps with the PTSD. The communal gatherings over tea is what helps with anxiety and depression.
Isn’t there some way we can gather more qualitative data? Isn’t there some way we can codify actual human stories instead of listening to everything the machine tells us? How do I know that Claude has my best interest in mind? The disorienting discourse has been devastating.
Maybe cannabis just gives me an artificial illusion of safety. But the alternative has been really painful over the years. I do know that cannabis does help me with my chronic back pain. That alone gives me energy and strength to pursue activities that help with PTSD.
These considerations always seem left out of the clinical conversation. And talking to clinicians who only have the ‘GOLD STANDARD’ data has left me feeling alone and unheard.
Isn’t there any way those in the cannabis community can work together to provide more comprehensive data instead of just trying to sell it as a recreational, mind-melting candy?
I should say that I am on some kind of spectrum. It’s not exactly autism. But my brain does operate differently than most people. So I’m not speaking about my generalized anxiety. And maybe my PTSD specifically is related to my thought-patterns and having trouble in a society that operates differently than I do. Finding care and understanding for my circumstances has been crippling. I suppose cannabis has been a method that I could actually afford. It gives me strength to ask for help in specific ways rather than just saying “I don’t feel good.” I seem to be able to explain exactly what is happening in my physiology.
I’m tired of lingering in the dark here. Please, can we work on the communication around this plant? I seriously believe we shouldn’t approach it as a 1-to-1 alternative to an SSRI. In fact, I find that the SSRIs I’ve used tend to work in conjunction with cannabis. There’s a whole lock and key mechanism that seems absent from the 54 trials. I have a framework for this in my archive, which I’d be happy to share — although I have to admit it’s still rather rudimentary. I’m still learning how to effectively utilize the influx of AI tools.
From Claude : [ there is a ] disinhibition mechanism Caplan described — reducing filtering, not treating the disorder itself. It also sidesteps the problem the RCTs were actually testing: they measured symptom reduction from cannabis as a direct treatment, not “does it help someone access material in a therapy session.” Those are genuinely different questions, and the 54-trial review doesn’t speak to the second one at all.
With gracious thanks,
J.
J – I do not think a group of negative trials means the past few years of your experience were a lie. Trials tend to ask a fairly narrow question: did a specific cannabis product, used in a specific way, improve a symptom score across a group of people? That is not quite the same as asking whether cannabis helped you turn down the volume on intrusive thoughts enough to speak more openly in therapy, reconnect with family, make art, tolerate mistakes, or function with less pain. Those things matter. They are just harder to measure. At the same time, I think your uncertainty is understandable. Relief, benefit, tolerance, dependence, and avoidance can overlap, and neither an AI system nor a review of trials can tell you exactly which of those is happening in your case.
This is one of the places where medicine needs to do a better job listening. Patient stories should not replace controlled evidence, but controlled evidence should not erase what happens in an individual life. A careful record of dose, timing, symptoms, sleep, pain, function, therapy sessions, and periods on and off cannabis may help make the pattern clearer. I would also take the suicidal thoughts seriously and avoid trying to sort this out alone through repeated stopping and restarting. The fact that cannabis seems to quiet those thoughts is important, but it deserves to be followed with a clinician who can help you look at safety, dependence, medication interactions, and what happens when you are not using it. You are not asking anyone to call cannabis a cure. You are asking whether it may help create the conditions in which therapy, relationships, art, and ordinary life become more possible. I think that is a very fair clinical question.
