Diagnosed depression patients report good results with cannabinoid medicine

This study examined the effectiveness of cannabis medicine on patients diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). It was published online ahead of print in January 2024 the journal Pharmacopsychiatry.

59 patients were followed monthly for 18 weeks. 73% were male. The age range was between 20 and 54, and all participants had previous experience with traditional antidepressant medications.

Depression was measured on a 0-10 point rating scale. At the start (baseline) the average depression rating was 6.9.

After 18 weeks, the average depression rating was 3.8, or a 44% reduction in rating scale average level.

The authors found that just over half of the participants experienced at least a 50% reduction in depression rating after 18 weeks.

A treatment response (>50% reduction of the initial score) was seen in 50.8% at week 18.

Unfortunately the full text article and data are behind a strong paywall so we do not have access to more specific information about product types and dosing.

However, most patients reported clinically significant improvements in their depressive symptoms after 18 weeks of cannabinoid medicine treatment.

In the authors' words::

Patients reported a clinically significant reduction of depression severity.

Medical cannabis was well tolerated and dropout rate was comparable to those in clinical trials of antidepressant medication.

The article abstract is here at PubMed. 

Source:

Specka M, Bonnet U, Schmidberg L, Wichmann J, Keller M, Scholze C, Scherbaum N. Effectiveness of Medical Cannabis for the Treatment of Depression: A Naturalistic Outpatient Study. Pharmacopsychiatry. 2024 Jan 11. doi: 10.1055/a-2215-6114. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38211630.