Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #431

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Your Stoner Friend Really Is A Lot More Relaxed Than You, Scientists Confirm
Recreational mari- juana use is now legal in eight states plus the District of Columbia, giving public health researchers more leeway than ever to investigate some of the foun- dational underpin- nings of cannabis culture: How much weed is in a joint? What happens to your brain when you get high?
And now: Are chronic marijuana users really more relaxed than everyone else?
You might be sur- prised to learn that the research to date on this ques- tion is mixed. One recent study found that while low doses of THC (the active chemical compound in pot) helped people cope with stressful situations, moder- ate to higher doses actually made peo- ple stress out even more.
But that particular study simply measured the effects of a single dose of THC — what about the effects of repeated heavy cannabis use?
Enter new research from Washington State University, recently published in the journal Psychopharmacolo gy. The study recruited two groups of 40 peo- ple: One group had used marijua- na nearly every day for at least a year, and the other comprised people who weren’t mari- juana users.
Half of each group, users and non- users, was subject to a particularly anxiety-inducing laboratory test commonly used to measure stress responses: They had to dunk their hands in a contain- er of cold water for anywhere from 45 to 90 seconds, and then count back- ward from 2,043 by 17, getting rep- rimanded by lab workers whenever they got a number wrong.
As if that weren’t bad enough, they were also shown a live video feed of their faces as they attempted to count.
The other half of each group was
subject to a non- stressful “control” scenario: Dip a hand in warm water, count from 1 to 25, no repri- mands, no video.
The meat of this study comes from comparing the stress responses of the cannabis users and the non- users. To assess this, the researchers meas- ured the amounts of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, in the subjects’ saliva immediately after they took the stress tests.
“Despite abstaining from cannabis use on the day of test- ing,” the researchers found, “cannabis users exhibited no
increase in salivary cortisol concentra- tion in response to the stress manipu- lation compared to non-users” [emphasis added]. For a sanity check, the researchers also had the sub- jects self-evaluate their perceived lev- els of stress. Same finding: Nonusers rated themselves as more stressed out than the chron- ic marijuana users.
The heavy users, in other words, reacted to a stressful situation with equanimity and chill even though they weren’t stoned at the time of the test. There’s an outside chance that some of this effect could be due to self-selection:
Perhaps natu- rally relaxed people are more inclined to become frequent cannabis users? But the effects were observed in a controlled lab- oratory exper- iment, making the causal link much
stronger than it would have been if the
researchers had just relied on, say, pre-existing survey data.
This is somewhat unsurprising: Surveys show that “relaxation” is the No. 1 reason cited by marijuana users for why pot is their drug of choice. This research con- firms that they’re probably not just deluding them- selves and that over the long term, marijuana use does perhaps lead to a somewhat more relaxed out- look on life.
But, as the researchers note, this can be a dou- ble-edged sword. Stress is an adap- tive response to potentially danger- ous or harmful sit-
uations. Dampening that response in other- wise healthy indi- viduals may have unintended conse- quences: Prior research has shown links between unbal- anced cortisol lev- els and PTSD and depression, for instance.
On the other hand, stress and anxiety can be debilitating conditions in and of themselves. For certain individuals, self-medicating with pot may pro- vide an optimal level of stress relief without risk of some of the nastier side effects of prescription medications, for instance.
Stress aside, chronic marijuana use is linked to its own host of poten- tial side effects. Deliberately alter- ing your brain’s chemistry — via pot, alcohol, pre- scription meds or anything else — is a delicate balanc- ing act. The liberal- ization of marijua- na laws in Washington and other places is bringing some of that balance into sharper focus.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine