Colorado’s Health Department has repeatedly declined to put post-traumatic stress disorder on the list of conditions that can be treated legally with marijuana, citing a lack of research into whether or not it works.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is also adamant that there is no evidence marijuana is an effective PTSD treatment. “In fact, research suggests that marijuana can be harmful to individuals with PTSD,” the department’s website states.
And yet, the Drug Enforcement Administration has now approved federally funded research to study if smoking marijuana is an effective treatment for PTSD.
Marijuana has been linked to a slew of medical and psychiatric problems. Those include chronic bronchitis, abnormal brain development, short-term memory impairments, motor coordination, psychosis, and cognitive ability impairments. It can also lead to addiction — Cannabis Use Disorder.
The study will focus on smoking different strains of marijuana — not isolating components of it, which was done when researchers looked at deriving morphine from opium.
“Rather than isolate active ingredients in the plant … many legalization proponents advocate vehemently for smoked marijuana to be used as a medicine,” said Dr. Kevin Sabet, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida and former senior adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Obama.
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“The science on smoking any drug is clear: Smoking, especially highly potent whole marijuana, is not a proper delivery method, nor do other delivery methods ensure a reliable dose,” Sabet told LifeZette.
Temporary Fix?
How might marijuana possibly help those suffering from PTSD? The drug may ease symptoms in some sufferers because they may not have nightmares when they are high, Sabet noted.
“But we actually know that long-term marijuana use increases the chances by more than six-fold of a severe mental illness later in life,” he said. “So while you may feel better in the short term, the consequences for a lot of these people will happen a lot later.”
Sabet noted that a 2015 study from Yale University in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that marijuana actually makes PTSD symptoms worse.
That study stated: “Marijuana may actually worsen PTSD symptoms or nullify the benefits of specialized, intensive treatment.”
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Dr. Bertha K. Madras, Ph.D, a professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School, noted that “recent research indicates marijuana use after treating PTSD was associated with worse PTSD symptoms, more violent behavior, and use of alcohol and other drugs, compared with marijuana quitters and those who never used.” She added that several other recent studies “have also questioned the wisdom of marijuana for PTSD … At present, there is no strong evidence that marijuana objectively improves PTSD symptoms, and its heavy use may engender worse PTSD outcomes.”
Lighting Up
Mary Haag, a registered nurse and president and CEO of PreventionFIRST! in Ohio, believes marijuana needs to be studied, but does not endorse smoking it to treat PTSD. “Smoking anything isn’t the way we dispense medicine,” she told LifeZette. Most of what she’s seen does not support the use of marijuana in treating PTSD.
Some aspects of marijuana may have medicinal properties, Haag continued. “Any medicine is a toxin. You have to have the right amount that’s going to be therapeutic.”
The DEA’s approval is the first time the agency has granted permission to use raw marijuana in a placebo-controlled clinical trial on PTSD.
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Dr. Sue Sisley, a lead researcher, will start as early as next month to enroll 76 veterans. The study will take place at clinics in Phoenix and Baltimore and will examine the efficacy of smoking different strains of marijuana to treat PTSD.
The cannabis will come from the federal government’s marijuana farm at the University of Mississippi. Samples will be analyzed at the University of Colorado, and a professor at CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus will oversee the research. Funding has come from application fees paid by medical marijuana patients.
“The study needs to happen because these veterans have legitimate questions,” Sisley said in an article in The Denver Post.
Over the next two years, Sisley will enroll study participants. Results may not come in until 2019.
Dr. Margaret Haney, a professor of neurobiology at Columbia University Medical Center, told LifeZette she would like to see parts of the plant isolated, as there are hundreds of cannabinoids in marijuana. Many are not available to study.
“As a scientist, I like to isolate and control and know exactly what I’m getting,” she said. “We’re in this kind of crazy time right now where medications are getting voted in — in the absence of any data.”
Although she doesn’t think the FDA will ever approve marijuana and the number of study participants is relatively small, Haney believes the study’s placebo control will make it interesting. It may take more studies to be potentially considered for FDA approval, but Haney isn’t sure whether people care if the FDA gives it the green light or not. People are already using marijuana to “treat” conditions it hasn’t been tested for, she said.
“It seems as if the public has moved on, independent of the FDA,” Haney noted.
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