Legalizing Cannabis May Reduce Suicide Rates According to New Medical Study

If you were to read the CDC guidelines about cannabis use – specifically in relation to mental health – you’d think that cannabis is one of the worst drugs on the planet. Let me illustrate my point by posting something directly from the CDC website;

Marijuana use, especially frequently (daily or nearly daily) and in high doses, can cause disorientation and sometimes unpleasant thoughts or feelings of anxiety and paranoia.1

People who use marijuana are more likely to develop temporary psychosis (not knowing what is real, hallucinations, and paranoia) and long-lasting mental disorders, including schizophrenia (a type of mental illness where people might see or hear things that are not really there).2 The association between marijuana and schizophrenia is stronger in people who start using marijuana at an earlier age and use marijuana more frequently.

Marijuana use has also been linked to depression; social anxiety; and thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts, and suicide. – SOURCE CDC

As you can see, the very first point of the text reads, “Marijuana use, especially frequent and in high doses – can cause disorientation and sometimes unpleasant thoughts or feelings. This statement right off the bat is charged with a negative connotation.

We know that the government believes that using any “illegal drug” makes you “not of good moral standing”, however, in this piece by the CDC you are “sometimes” going to experience unpleasant thoughts or feelings of anxiety if you smoke marijuana. However, “unpleasant thoughts and feelings” can also be experienced if you smoke nothing – if you drink water, you may sometimes experience unpleasant thoughts or feelings of anxiety.

This is because by simply being alive – you may experience these things.I could continue ripping through the asinine explanation about cannabis, however – let’s see what recent studies suggest which goes in direct contradiction with the CDC statement.

Cannabis and Suicides

As we can judge by the statement of the CDC – “marijuana has been linked to thoughts of suicide, attempts of suicide, and suicide. However, new research is showing us the opposite to be true.

A study found that legalizing cannabis actually decreased instances of suicide with men between the age of 40-49 by 6.29%.

We found that recreational marijuana access was associated with a 6.29 percent reduction in suicide rates for males aged 40 to 49, but no other mental health outcomes were otherwise affected by liberalization of marijuana laws.

This was research done by the Cato Institute, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Yale Law School, and the Reason Foundation. Here’s a snippet of their conclusions.

“Adverse mental health outcomes do not follow cannabis liberalization at the state level, confirming the findings [the 2013 study],” the investigators found. “In addition, there is evidence that recreational marijuana access reduces suicide rates for middle-aged males.”

“The use of any drug, psychoactive or otherwise, entails certain risks along with any benefits. Cannabis is no exception,” as was written on the Cato Institute Blog . “Critics of marijuana legalization point to studies showing correlations between heavy cannabis use and suicide, depression, and mental health disorders. However, such studies that demonstrate correlation have yet to confirm causation, which should be determined by a model’s ability to predict.”

“We propose as medicinal and recreational use of marijuana becomes more widespread and mainstream, concerns about the correlation between marijuana use and depression should not interfere with state or federal efforts to decriminalize or legalize cannabis,” they continued. “In fact, legalization will have the salutary effect of allowing more rigorous research—now inhibited by federal prohibition—into the further benefits, as well as any other potential harms, from the long-term use of marijuana, and promote safer use.”

In other words, the statement on the CDC website is actually false – putting in doubt many of the other claims they have about cannabis and drugs in general.

Cannabis reduces depression, anxiety and improves sleep

A recent study also found that cannabis in general tends to reduce depression. This is especially true for products containing high CBD. An article on Forbes Magazine outlined more about the study but for brevity sake I will post the important data points;

“Medicinal cannabis products, especially products high in CBD, may help to treat symptoms of depression, improve sleep, and increase quality of life,” said Martin. “There is also some evidence that medicinal cannabis may alleviate symptoms of anxiety, particularly if administered over an extended period of time, but this is less clear from our results and warrants further study.”

The study looked at both cannabis users and non-cannabis users and found that overall, cannabis was beneficial for users and many said that using these products helped them reduce their depression. Anxiety is still a bit murky, but it is evident that cannabis in fact can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is important because these symptoms are often associated with people who commit suicide. Thus, by reducing these symptoms, the odds of suicide also is reduced – as was found in the first study I cited.

Where does this leave us?

This brings us back to the CDC who states that the exact opposite is true. The reason this is important is because agencies like the CDC and the FDA are supposed to be “following the science” – yet, we can see by their websites that they aren’t. They are following the political consensus as opposed to empirical evidence.

If they are skewed within something as benign as cannabis, it makes us wonder what else they may have wrong? We know that the War on Drugs was founded on misinformation and we know that there are several political interests in keeping it alive.

Do you think that when it comes to scientific institutions, political biases make trust in these organizations difficult to accrue? Has cannabis helped you with depression and anxiety? Let me know in the comment section.