Medicinal cannabis anxiety help

MEDICINAL cannabis has been found to halve the symptoms of chronic anxiety in young people as companies race to get a product available for sale without a prescription from 2023.

Current treatments for anxiety – psychological therapy and antidepressant drugs – only work in some people who try them so clinicians are looking for other treatments.

Youth mental health service Orygen conducted a small trial in 31 people aged 12 to 25 who had treatment resistant anxiety.

After 12 weeks of treatment, the nonaddictive version of medicinal cannabis, called cannabidiol (CBD), delivered an average 42.6 per cent reduction in anxiety severity, the results of the trial published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on Thursday show.

“The young people had fewer panic attacks and could do things which they were previously unable to do like leave the house, go to school, participate in social situations, eat at restaurants, take public transport or attend appointments by themselves,” study leader Professor Paul Amminger said.

“That’s an amazing change in the group which has had treatment-resistant, longstanding severe to very severe anxiety.”

While the effect in the treatment-resistant group was encouraging, the next step is a randomised controlled trial in more than 200 people which is the gold standard to test a new treatment, Professor Amminger said.

Anxiety is the fastest growing form of mental ill-health in young people with nearly a third of young people affected.

Study co-investigator and Orygen Executive Director, Professor Patrick McGorry said that figure was double the rate of the general population.

“Cannabidiol is a promising treatment option which appears safe and effective. We need further research to confirm this and explore its value,” Professor McGorry said.

CBD is the non-intoxicating component of the Cannabis plant that doesn’t make you ‘high’ and it’s not addictive.

In Australia, Cannabidiol has been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as a prescription treatment for children with rare forms of epilepsy (Dravet syndrome and Lennox Gastaut syndrome).