Anew study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence30220-X/fulltext){href='http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(17)30220-X/fulltext' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'} suggests that canabis relieves stress and makes you feel more relaxed. Assuming you've got the dosage right.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago, a group of researchers have been investigating the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis) on stress.
Researchers wanted to test whether or not the rumours were true – does cannabis relieve stress and help people feel more relaxed? Because although this is a common claim, little scientific research has actually been conducted on the subject.
In this study, the team of researchers set out to see how different doses of cannabis affected 42 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 40 years old. Although all participants had some experience of cannabis, none of them were daily users.
Participants were split into three separate groups: a low-dose group (who received a capsule containing 7.5 milligrams of THC), a moderate-dose group (who received a capsule containing 12.5 milligrams of THC) and a placebo group (who received a capsule containing no THC). Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which level of dosage each participant had been given.
In order to test whether or not the introduction of THC into the bloodstream helps to relieve stress, researchers asked participants to complete a challenging mathematical question for 5 minutes, as well other tasks including playing solitaire for 5 minutes and describing their favourite book/film.
At the start, during, and after participants had completed these tasks they were asked to rate their stress levels and feelings about the tasks. As predicted, participants who received a low dosage of THC reported lower stress levels compared to participants that had received the placebo. Interestingly, however, participants that had received the higher dosage of THC reported a more negative mood before and during the tasks than the placebo group.
Although this was a relatively small-scale study, these findings are still important because they start to build on our limited scientific knowledge of the effects of cannabis use. And due to the increasing demand for new regulations regarding the usage of medical cannabis, this information opens up a much-needed discussion on this subject.
Laws surrounding marijuana usages for medical purposes is something that is still being debated in the UK, and over in America, these laws continue to see dramatic changes. However, due to this drug being a category 1 substance, the high level of regulation means that obtaining permits to study the drug are increasingly difficult.
One of the main things to be taken away from this study is that there is still so much research to be conducted on this drug and that regulations regarding these drugs need to be reviewed.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.