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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:02AM   Printer-friendly

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

As growing numbers of people are using cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new UCL study reports that prescriptions are not backed up by adequate evidence.

The systematic review, published in the Journal of Dual Diagnosis, finds that the active components of cannabis, called cannabinoids, may hold promise as a treatment for PTSD, particularly for reducing nightmares and helping people sleep, but more research is needed to determine whether these drugs should be used in routine clinical practice.

"There has been a recent surge of interest in the use of cannabinoids to treat PTSD, particularly from military veterans, many of whom are already self-medicating or obtaining prescriptions in some American states," said the study's lead author, Dr Chandni Hindocha (UCL Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit).

"The lack of evidence supporting cannabis as a PTSD treatment is striking given the vast interest in it, and the large unmet need for better PTSD treatments," she said.

PTSD is a potentially debilitating condition affecting roughly 1% of the UK population, typically consisting of re-experiencing a traumatic event through intrusive memories, flashbacks or nightmares, and often involves hyper-reactivity (a state of constant vigilance) and insomnia.

Psychotherapies (talking therapies) including trauma-focussed cognitive-behavioural therapy have been shown to be effective for PTSD. However, not everyone can access talking therapies and they do not work for everyone, so many people still need to take prescribed medications. Existing drugs approved for PTSD do not work for everyone, and can have side effects, so researchers say there is an urgent need to identify new treatments.

A growing number of people have turned to cannabinoids, which is an approved treatment for PTSD in most states in the USA that permit medical cannabis.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @06:56AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @06:56AM (#889902)

    You need someone you trust absolutely and can tell anything to. You take rohypnol and they walk you through the traumatic memories a few times. The way memory works is remembering things is like a read-wipe-rewrite cycle. This is why peoples memories drift - the rewriting is not perfect. Each cycle reinforces the bad memory. The rohypnol blocks the rewrite and decreases the impact of the memories.
    Depending how bad and how long ago you might need a few cycles.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:21PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:21PM (#890061)

    There's special cases where conventional therapy does not work... like having PTSD, emotional amnesia, and having an eidetic memory that brings it all back in detail.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06 2019, @12:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06 2019, @12:53AM (#890327)

      You won't completely wipe the memories but you can greatly reduce the impact and stop the self-reinforcing that is a major part of PTSD.
      Of course, it's all a bit fuzzy and situation dependent. That's why the need for a trusted friend. It's like LSD research, people having trips in company with happy friends kept reporting amazing insights and mental development while people strapped to tables in laboratories kept reporting bad trips.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @07:29PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @07:29PM (#891059)

    or instead of trying to block the rewrite of the memory you can learn to cope with/accept it via mdma and or mushrooms(or both at the same time?).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @02:30AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @02:30AM (#891146)

      You will not completely erase a memory this way. Rohypnol will completely stop you forming new memories, hence its use as a rape drug. But it will decrease the intensity of the targeted memories and reduce their impact. It can go as far as making the memories seem more like something you read about than a trauma you lived through.
      That's why the need for a trusted friend. You have to tell them everything that's relevant and they have to keep you on track recalling the same things over and over through the drug session.