Cannabis and THC, its main psychoactive compound, have been endorsed by people suffering from anxiety, sleep problems, epilepsy, and cancer pain.

What is missing from such claims is a plausible biological hypothesis for how it can be everything to everyone, which means scientifically it is still just a placebo.

Science or not, while a placebo is not medicine and anyone prescribing one should lose their medical license (like you, osteopaths who tell people to use homeopathic products), even if it is not valid clinically if it works for you individually, that is fine. A new paper suggests that enough people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) get benefit from it that it may be in the rotation.

Image: Adobe Stock Africa Studio/92196462 provided by Thomas Jefferson University

Confounders are numerous. Anything that is a spectrum is going to mean a lot of subjective claims about what works or does not, e.g. correlation showing that organic food causes autism is just as invalid as correlation claiming organic food prevents it. Because behavior is subjective – a school teacher who has 25 students and wants them all to sit like a zombie is going to mean more recommendations for medication than the average – current treatments go from amphetamines like Adderall to cognitive behavioral therapy.

That it is a review of other papers means another reason why this is just EXPLORATORY and not science. Marijuana is not well-studied and cannabis products are off in supplement land where, thanks to President Clinton’s 1994 DSHEA law exempting the industry from scrutiny unless they claim to cure cancer or kill someone, there is little consistency in product composition or manufacturing. Marijuana may get an easier time being studied with a new administration but with politics it is hard to know.(1)

When the authors use terms like “super complicated” and “super surprised”, it’s worth wondering if they aren’t a little too closely involved with the product they are studying. 

NOTES:

(1) Four years ago the vaccine denial was in one political party and now it has flipped, and the lead US proponent of it, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is likely to bring his conspiracy theories about agriculture, cell phones, and fluoride over to the right-wing with him.