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Could Marijuana be used as an antidepressant?

Yes of course, i once took a prescription antidepressant, and to sum up the effects of that pharmaceutical drug in one sentence: this drug had worse effects on me and my life than every recreational drug i have ever used; not only did the pills not work, but they were hard to get off of due to the annoying withdrawls , and they caused me to act strangely enough to damage my reputation for a few years....... but doctors still continue to tell us that these drugs are supported by science and proven ,
while cannabis doesnt work for anything as there are not any studies. anyways: weed totally helps depression. much more than that lexapro shit they gave me.

my doc got really worried when he found out i smoke weed. he found out in 2009, he doesnt know i still smoke it , but right now- he still doesnt trust me and he is
suspiscious i may abuse my adderall prescription - he thinks that weed is a sign that i have some sort of psychological drug use problem or something . he creates such a big deal out of weed, yet he was willing to prescribe lexapro within 5 minutes of talking to him. i will never understand why the potential problems of weed are worried about excessively : such as weed causing schizophrenia, when it turns out that it only increases the risk of it by at most 1 percent. i hate the war on drugs.

common problems with a prescription antidepressants: feeling apathetic and dull, impulsive behavior, increased suicide risk (due to lowered restraint of behaviors),
hypomania/mania ( which is what my experience is best described by), loss of libido combined with erection problems as well as lowered romantic (love) interest in your partner (wow isnt that a lovely combo...sarcasm), and withdrawal effects that can only be easily avoided by tapering off for weeks,and a possible interaction with
alcohol as well as potentially fatal reactions when combined with the common herbal/supplement remedies st. johns wort and 5-htp, and the fact that you dont
actually notice that you are acting different.

common problems with weed: lung problems if smoked everyday for decades, some short-term memory loss , paranoia, inattentiveness, mind is a bit foggy

the problems with weed can be avoided easily: marijuana has full effects the first time of use and so if the user finds these effects harmful, he can stop treatment
immediately . and plus he realizes he is stoned and knows to make a concious effort to avoid odd behavior.

but , with an antidepressant, the doctor will tell you that the med takes a month or two of use (wtf?) to have any affect and to wait out any negative effects (which you are told will go away eventually and be replaced by positive effects). after that month is up, you are already to the point that although u arent technically
addicted , the withdrawal effects keep you to continue trying the drug. then in that time , by random chance, something good happens and your bad feelings lower.
you take this as a sign that the med is working , when it is in reality random variation of mood. unlike weed, you dont get high , however your mind is clouded, just in a different way. but you feel normal , but think and behave erratically because you dont realize that it is affecting your judgement.
 
michael_1992 said:
Yes of course, i once took a prescription antidepressant, and to sum up the effects of that pharmaceutical drug in one sentence: this drug had worse effects on me and my life than every recreational drug i have ever used; not only did the pills not work, but they were hard to get off of due to the annoying withdrawls , and they caused me to act strangely enough to damage my reputation for a few years....... but doctors still continue to tell us that these drugs are supported by science and proven ,
while cannabis doesnt work for anything as there are not any studies. anyways: weed totally helps depression. much more than that lexapro shit they gave me.

my doc got really worried when he found out i smoke weed. he found out in 2009, he doesnt know i still smoke it , but right now- he still doesnt trust me and he is
suspiscious i may abuse my adderall prescription - he thinks that weed is a sign that i have some sort of psychological drug use problem or something . he creates such a big deal out of weed, yet he was willing to prescribe lexapro within 5 minutes of talking to him. i will never understand why the potential problems of weed are worried about excessively : such as weed causing schizophrenia, when it turns out that it only increases the risk of it by at most 1 percent. i hate the war on drugs.

common problems with a prescription antidepressants: feeling apathetic and dull, impulsive behavior, increased suicide risk (due to lowered restraint of behaviors),
hypomania/mania ( which is what my experience is best described by), loss of libido combined with erection problems as well as lowered romantic (love) interest in your partner (wow isnt that a lovely combo...sarcasm), and withdrawal effects that can only be easily avoided by tapering off for weeks,and a possible interaction with
alcohol as well as potentially fatal reactions when combined with the common herbal/supplement remedies st. johns wort and 5-htp, and the fact that you dont
actually notice that you are acting different.

common problems with weed: lung problems if smoked everyday for decades, some short-term memory loss , paranoia, inattentiveness, mind is a bit foggy

the problems with weed can be avoided easily: marijuana has full effects the first time of use and so if the user finds these effects harmful, he can stop treatment
immediately . and plus he realizes he is stoned and knows to make a concious effort to avoid odd behavior.

but , with an antidepressant, the doctor will tell you that the med takes a month or two of use (wtf?) to have any affect and to wait out any negative effects (which you are told will go away eventually and be replaced by positive effects). after that month is up, you are already to the point that although u arent technically
addicted , the withdrawal effects keep you to continue trying the drug. then in that time , by random chance, something good happens and your bad feelings lower.
you take this as a sign that the med is working , when it is in reality random variation of mood. unlike weed, you dont get high , however your mind is clouded, just in a different way. but you feel normal , but think and behave erratically because you dont realize that it is affecting your judgement.
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wow. im sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with Lexapro:(
this sorta makes me wanna quit my Effexor:\
i think the weed has been making me reflect on my life, and yesterday i had this moment of like realization, and now i think i know how i can turn my life around.

only problem is i cant stop eating hahaha
 
Low doses of cannabis help depression, while higher doses make it worse (I guess after the initial euphoria wears off).

For me, 0.1g of the dank has me clear headed, pretty darn high, not too "stoned," creative, music-appreciative, etc. Higher doses, 0.2g - 0.4g of the dank brings on a much heavier stone, but with more side effects (nodding, burning out, getting lazy, etc). I've been smoking for 4 years daily medical bud, and I have a rec in California.


"Low doses had a potent anti-depressant effect, but when we increased the dose, the serotonin in the rats' brains actually dropped below the level of those in the control group. So we actually demonstrated a double effect: At low doses it increases serotonin, but at higher doses the effect is devastating, completely reversed."
from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071023183937.htm

I recommend scaling out your weed for each session, ever since I started side effects dropped immensely from overdoing it, and my weed lasts so damn long now, haha. If I don't weigh the herb I tend to get greedy and pack a fatass bowl. :D
 
Fyasko. said:
^how often were you smoking?
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A lot. I used to smoke .3g on average 4-5 times a day. Sometimes I would lose track of bowls (0.5-0.6g, that's a lot of weed for medical grade). I used to eat hash oil chocolate bars whole, now I eat a piece and a half.

Now I smoke 0.1g-0.2g and I appreciate the high more than I ever have. Plus I get pain relief, not pain intensification from a higher dose. I've ditched the extracts, that got out of hand with tolerance, and I'm pretty sure I've gotten some sort of reverse tolerance effect.
 
I think this will be very ineffective and probably harmful in the long term. I love MJ like nothing else, but even I have to admit that it increases apathy, decreases motivation, and aggravates anxiety with regular usage. Self-medicating depression with recreational drugs is a notoriously bad idea. I know because I've done plenty of it.
 
Don't smoke early in the day if you're worried about losing motivation. I only smoke at night for this reason.
 
I'm going to try one of the charas landrace strains from Mazar-I-Sharif that's famous for hash-making and hopefully with some selection will be able to cross a male that has a recessive CBD allele with a female also with this allele, so that a quarter of the progeny have CBD:THC levels in a ratio of 1:1. Unfortunately this CBD allele has been bred out of ganja (herbal cannabis) strains so that most strains grown today have high THC levels and negligible amounts of THC. Since CBD acts as a 5-HT1A agonist and has many other pharmacological effects, it can act as both an anxiolytic and antidepressant. This hopefully should lift the mild depression I sometimes suffer from if all goes well. As said though, this obviously wouldn't work for everyone and I wouldn't expect it to. The same goes with any single approach though.

Because cannabis can be used recreationally there is a certain stigma attached to its medical use unfortunately. However as it becomes more established in the medical community I think there will be more acceptance of it's benefits for people suffering from subjective illnesses such as depression and anxiety rather than the more obvious ones like MS.

By the way, I do not believe there's much evidence that cannabis causes the so called 'amotivational syndrome' with regular use in healthy adults. I think it's more myth than reality. Whilst your high it could be a problem, but I IMO it's not as if it's some drug induced syndrome cannabis inflicts on you with heavy use.
 
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Pegasus said:
Don't smoke early in the day if you're worried about losing motivation. I only smoke at night for this reason.
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That's not certain for every person. Sometimes I need to smoke to be able to face going out the door, after I blaze up I feel confident and ready to look people in the eye.
I definitely self-medicate with it. jesusmaker said it right, if you are using it as a coping device it should be handled like pharmaceuticals in a controlled manner. Once it's not routine it becomes substance abuse, I just use it to get me going so I can feel optimistic enough to work on my own problems. When things are easier smoking becomes recreational but it's still very therapeutic.x
 
Artificial Emotion said:
I'm going to try one of the charas landrace strains from Mazar-I-Sharif that's famous for hash-making and hopefully with some selection will be able to cross a male that has a recessive CBD allele with a female also with this allele, so that a quarter of the progeny have CBD:THC levels in a ratio of 1:1.
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How do you select for the recessive CBD allele and for the 1:1 ratio? I mean you specifically.
 
I'm not convinced cananbis is this total cure-all drug that the hardcore stoners make it out to be. I am in no way devaluing the experiences of those who use cannabis to help cure or ease depression but it certainly is not a perfect anti-depressant, and many of its effects would make it unsuitable for use with the larger depressed population. A core ideal for modern medicine in treating depression is not to make anti-depressants "happy pills", if that were the case then opiates and stimulants would certainly provide a perfect "cure" for depression at first by inducing euphoria, but eventually the dependence and negative side effects of such addictions would render the drug unsuitable as an antidepressant. Clearly the issue with using marijuana as an antidepressant isn't as extreme, but I question how long being stoned to keep depression away will stay effective - again, I'm sure it works for a lot of people and I'm not knocking them, but I don't think it's a perfect cure.

I would have to disagree with michael 1992's post. I think you're over generalising your experiences with cananbis and antidepressants to everyone who uses them, and because weed comes out as superior you are assuming that it's the perfect cure and that "Big Pharma" are pushing antidepressants that don't help just to make money, when this clearly isn't true. Antidepressants can be an enormous help for many people, especially those who are severely depressed, and you are clearly understating the negative side effects of marijuana. Sustained heavy use can have long term negative effects on memory not to mention the alledged increased incidence of schizophrenia etc. Also the fact is that it wouldn't be prescribed as a large scale antidepressant because all anti-depressants must be tested on rats and the rats must not show sign of self administration or the drug is discounted (yeah, seems a little counter-productive I know...). Basically, I don't think weed is suitable for all depressed people.
 
bleh123 said:
For me, it works as an antidepressant for 4ish hours, but its not worth it. If I smoke at least a couple times a week, I have increased depression when I haven't smoked for a while, or if I need to take a day off (this persists until I sober up for a good week or so).

I have seen this occur in many potheads: depression when not stoned (as a result of withdrawls). I bet some people in here talking up weed actually experience the same themselves, whether or not they know it.

Not to mention the fact that being stoned all the time makes you less driven to actually change your life in a way that would make you happier
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thats a really good point, i guess its the same as prescribing opiates or amphetamines for depression, it gets ya through the day but makes the week 2x harder:\
 
Fyasko. said:
thats a really good point, i guess its the same as prescribing opiates or amphetamines for depression, it gets ya through the day but makes the week 2x harder:\
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I agree. Top shelf weed is actually quite dopaminergic. The first year of daily smoking was filled with intense euphoria while smoking, and pretty harsh withdrawals (from dopamine and endocannibinoid downregulation). Mild opioid w/d feels almost similar to the weed w/d's I used to get when I used to abuse the plant.

I've gotten more euphoria from weed when i was a noob then I get from mild opiates now (20mg hydrocodone, 6-7g premium kratom, etc.). Some serotonin-inducing opiates like Tramadol and Nucynta have given me some pretty crazy euphoria, though, reminiscent of my noob weed smoking days, but I bet you if I abused my serotonin receptors (as I did to my DA receptors with weed) with an SSRI or something then it would be different.

So, you pay a price to get high, but if you are careful with your weed consumption, it is possible to use it as a short-term antidepressant, or as an "as needed" mood boost. Regardless, I love weed, and I was surprised that opiates, benzos, lyrica, etc (hard drugs that I was always scared to try until last year) couldn't even hold a candle to the complex weed high. And the tolerance issue is great with weed. In the 4 years I used weed multiple times daily, my smoking amount actually reduced. If I did opiates for 4 years straight, I would probably be doing heroin now.
 
i think all drugs can act as anti-depressants. however, drugs only mask and do not fix the underlying problem.
 
Hell yes it can be. I'm not going to even bother with any of the science behind it, I'll just say:

Can't pay your electric bill? Hit a blunt and see if you don't mind using candles until you can.

Jokes aside, I don't suggest you use it AS an anti-depressant, you don't want to get a stronger mental addiction then necessary, and using weed as a crutch will not help you in the long run.

ErgicMergic, when you were saying "mild opiate use," I was not picturing 20mg hydrocodone. I would barely consider that a light habit, and I would say you would not get any sort of real opiate w/d from that habit. 20mg hydro is a dosage for someone with no tolerance or overly susceptible to opiates. Just thought i'd chime in there, it's almost offensive to see someone say opiate w/d is anywhere near the ballpark of cannabis w/d.
 
Chainer said:
ErgicMergic, when you were saying "mild opiate use," I was not picturing 20mg hydrocodone. I would barely consider that a light habit, and I would say you would not get any sort of real opiate w/d from that habit. 20mg hydro is a dosage for someone with no tolerance or overly susceptible to opiates. Just thought i'd chime in there, it's almost offensive to see someone say opiate w/d is anywhere near the ballpark of cannabis w/d.
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I've withdrawn from 80mg daily hydrocodone for 4 months, and I would call that a regular w/d. 300mg oxy a day cold turkey like you is a very severe w/d, one that I can't imagine going through. I was talking more like treshold w/d effects, the ones that don't even give you much flu symptoms. Heavy weed w/d being stronger than a very mild opiate w/d surprised me, considering it is touted as being non-addictive. I've taken a break after a Nucynta binge for a couple of months, and I've only recently become barely physically addicted again. I've kept my tolerance low now by not even touching real opiates, just kratom/tram (I used to not be able to feel 40mg hydro), so with my current tolerance, 20mg is actually relatively moderate. I should have clarified this.
 
ErgicMergic said:
I've withdrawn from 80mg daily hydrocodone for 4 months, and I would call that a regular w/d. 300mg oxy a day cold turkey like you is a very severe w/d, one that I can't imagine going through. I was talking more like treshold w/d effects, the ones that don't even give you much flu symptoms. Heavy weed w/d being stronger than a very mild opiate w/d surprised me, considering it is touted as being non-addictive. I've taken a break after a Nucynta binge for a couple of months, and I've only recently become barely physically addicted again. I've kept my tolerance low now by not even touching real opiates, just kratom/tram (I used to not be able to feel 40mg hydro), so with my current tolerance, 20mg is actually relatively moderate. I should have clarified this.
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Oh, okay. I agree, 80mg hydro is certainly enough to see what real opiate w/ds are like, but as you said, not the worst w/d. I'm glad you understand I wasn't trying to be a dick, there's nothing cool about opiate abuse or w/d, I just always get a bit startled when I see cannabis compared to opiates. Thank you for clarifying! Now that I think of it, I think a 30mg hydro habit would be close to coming off years of smoking A grade cannabis... Personally I believe the worst side of quitting cannabis is the mental aspect rather then the sleep and mood changes.

As someone who has come off a lot of drugs, cannabis has always been one of the most pleasent. I often think to myself that "cannabis withdrawals" should have a different name, almost every other drug associated with withdrawals is a completely different beast.

/derail/rant
 
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