Marihuana in the Treatment of Anxiety
and Depression by Anonymous

After a lifetime of trauma, anxiety disorders and depression, I was finally able to get properly diagnosed in 1996. I had always felt that my problems stemmed from a chemical imbalance that I had tried to self-medicate with various drugs, both legal and illicit. While therapy did help me talk out family issues -- my mother's death, my father's abuse of her, me and my fellow siblings, my father's subsequent death -- I found the prescription drugs for depression to be erratic at best and ineffective in the long term.

The one thing that has most helped me through these bouts has been marihuana. It has an uncanny effect on nearly all of my symptoms -- anxiety disorder, low self-esteem, an almost paralyzing depression, thoughts of suicide and withdrawal from society and responsibilities. When I take a few puffs, I can laugh about misfortunes and often look more clearly at what triggered the outbursts. My various therapists have insisted that marihuana can do no such thing and prescribed more intensive drug therapies.

I am currently about to start a substance abuse program to treat the alcoholism that that I have developed because marihuana has become difficult to obtain. I am lucky to have a primary physician who actually listens to my concerns and suggestions. I often joke with him that the most effective therapy for my mental disorders has been marihuana and I wish he could prescribe some "legal pot" for me.

How ironic that I stumble upon your website and find the anecdotal evidence that marihuana use -- or in this case, Marinol -- has been effective in the same types of depression and anxiety disorders that I have been trying to self-medicate for all these years.

In short, doctors, I feel somewhat vindicated that my suspicions might be correct. I am very eager to try Marinol.