Does Cannabis Help Anxiety?

I have a lot of anxiety. Is cannabis right for me or should I stay with my martinis?

Hi everybody. I’m Dr. Dan Stein and I’m going to address that common question today.

Almost everybody has some degree of anxiety at some point in their lives and that’s because a small amount of anxiety in certain situations is completely normal.

I was a bit anxious before I came on camera today. We have anxiety built into our genetics so that we can fight or run if a threat presents itself. That’s a protective, adaptive mechanism. In those cases, anxiety is completely normal.

However, some patients develop anxiety conditions that are maladaptive and result in functional impairment and that’s a pathological condition and those people need help.

Now I’m not just talking about being anxious at the end of the day and needing to relax. I’m talking about a type of anxiety that results in a person’s inability to function day to day.

One form of anxiety is a phobia, a fear of a certain situation, whether it’s a fear of people like agoraphobia or a fear of animals or bridges. These types of phobias can be functionally devastating especially if you need to go into a social situation or travel somewhere.

A severe form of anxiety is known as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. In those conditions, individuals who have suffered a form of trauma are unable to function normally thereafter. They’re hyper-vigilant. They’re scared. They’re nervous. They may have abnormal behaviors, rage or reactions to certain environmental situations and certainly they end up avoiding situations and becoming dysfunctional

Intrusive memories are an important and debilitating part of the PTSD syndrome. Fortunately, cannabis therapy can help in a variety of ways for patients that have anxiety all across the spectrum from mild phobias to severe PTSD.

We’re using cannabis therapy for those patients here in our clinic and we’re using it in a mindful way, so that we don’t overuse for those patients that have mild, perhaps relatively normal anxiety and we encourage the proper dosing for patients who need a more intense form of therapy for things like PTSD.

It’s a bit complicated. But I’m happy to talk with you or your loved ones in more detail if you have specific questions about this type of indication.

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Located in beautiful Sarasota, Florida, the offices of Neurology of Cannabis are open to all full-time and seasonal Florida residents exploring medical treatment options with medical marijuana.

Lead physician and Board Certified Neurologist, Daniel P. Stein, M.D. performs all patient examinations and evaluates patient medical records to develop customized and effective treatment plans.

We make the process of qualifying, registering, obtaining, and renewing access to medical marijuana in Florida as easy as possible. At Neurology of Cannabis, we are passionate about the effective use of medical marijuana to transform the health of our patients.

Neurology of Cannabis
5602 Marquesas Circle, Suite 108
Phone: [phone]
Sarasota, Florida 34233