From the Editor
“It’s the only thing that works.”
So many of our patients swear by cannabis. It has become a popular choice for everything from anxiety to chronic pain. And though the literature is relatively young, now we know more about cannabis than before. This week, we focus on three new papers.
The first selection is a paper by Dr. Emmet Power (of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) and his co-authors from Psychological Medicine. Does frequent and dependent cannabis use in youth affect IQ? Doing a systematic review and meta-analysis, they find seven papers. They conclude: “We found that young people who use cannabis frequently or dependently by age 18 have declined in IQ at follow up and this may be due to a decline in verbal IQ.”
In the second selection, we consider a new paper from Psychiatric Services. Dr. Corneliu N. Stanciu (of Dartmouth College) and his co-authors did a systematic review of cannabis for several disorders. “With only eight very small studies, insufficient evidence was found for efficacy of CBD and THC to manage affective disorders, anxiety disorders, or PTSD.”
Finally, in the third selection, we look at a paper from Annals of Internal Medicine. Drs. Arthur Robin Williams (of Columbia University) and Kevin P. Hill (of Harvard University) pose 15 questions about cannabis and answer them. The authors are practical and thoughtful. The clinical bottom line: “Millions more adults now meet criteria for cannabis use disorder in a given year, and all clinicians, not just mental health professionals, have vital roles in improving clinical management, from screening and diagnosis to overseeing treatment plans.”
DG
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