A recent study thought to be the first of its kind has found that regular cannabis use may make a person less prone to anxiety over time, even when sober.
The study, published in the medical journal Psychopharmacology, found that people who use cannabis daily or almost daily had a blunted stress reaction when exposed to a high-stress situation after a period of abstinence from marijuana. While non-cannabis users reported feeling anxious and experienced elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol when stressed, chronic cannabis users reported lower levels of anxiety, and their cortisol levels remained the same under high stress as they they were under no stress.
The research involved 40 people who had used cannabis chronically over the previous year and 42 people who’d used cannabis no more than 10 times in their lives and not at all in the previous year. All participants abstained from using cannabis from 12 to 18 hours prior to the study.
“Based on our findings, the potential effects of cannabis on stress do appear to extend beyond the period of intoxication,” Dr. Carrie Cuttler, a researcher and clinical assistant professor at Washington State University and co-author of the study, told Leafly.
“But,” she cautions, “We’re not yet comfortable saying whether that muted stress response is a good thing or a bad thing.”
