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Comment by chneu | Hacker News Reader

Multiple large studies and metanalysis show very little support for the notion that marijuana treats most mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. It's definitely not the "cure all" that a lot of folks think it is.

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I am hippy among hippies and the only people who ever talk about it as a 'cure all' are the people really far gone. People who think crystals can cure sicknesses. Those type of people. It's literally a god send to people with stomach problems, it can help you go to sleep but I would bet everything I own it's not as deep and good a sleep as sleeping sober. I've heard people say the ointments can help with certain pains. That's about it.

You say it's just people who are "really far gone", but when I look at the type of marketing at CBD stores, it's marketed for nearly everything, so I suspect a lot more people are falling for this than you might suspect. Plus, any individual doesn't have to believe it's a "cure-all" - they just have to believe it cures their specific random ailment. I've seen it marketed to help with sleep, anxiety (despite it causing anxiety in a lot of people), depression, any type of pain you can think of, nausea, hoarders of chronic conditions, etc.

I agree with the top comment - I think it's great that we're starting to deal rationally with cannabis, but we need to be realistic about. It can be beneficial but can also cause real harms, especially in children and young adults, and cannabis use disorder is a real thing.

I think there exists enough evidence of placebo benefits that it shouldn't be all that surprising. Moreover, regardless of any study or anecdote to the contrary, Those people will exist and see actual benefits, realized or not.

Again, I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use. I also don't know a single person who would argue that there no health negatives from smoking pot. The reason we haven't had a rational conversation about it is because the governments position has been to classify it as literally the same as heroin. That is what has prevented real research and real conversation.

I agree with the idea that we haven't had a rational conversation about cannabis due to the government's "reefer madness" madness. But I also think saying "I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use" is a strawman. You don't need to advocate for children to use it, but I think a lot of people felt (I feel like this sense "peaked" in the early stages of legalization) that pot is essentially harmless. That is, that it may not be great to binge on it, but a lot of people thought there were little, if any, long term negative effects. That general belief certainly filters down to young people.

My understanding of the most recent research is that weed is especially harmful when it comes to long term brain development for adolescents (and, ironically, that it can, though research is definitely not conclusive, have protective cognitive benefits for people who don't start weed until their brain is fully developed).

I hear this kind of talk relatively frequently and do not generally have "far gone" friends.

In a significant fraction of users, there is a risk of marijuana induced psychoses. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Here’s something I’ve not understood. A major argument for legalizing is that studies can be done. But I regularly hear that studies have been done. What’s the reality?

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