Cannabis and Mental Health
Across the scientific literature, cannabis use is associated with elevated risk of anxiety, depression, and psychotic disorders. The strongest signal is for psychosis — a finding now replicated in dozens of studies and confirmed by genetic-instrumental methods (Mendelian randomization). The depression and anxiety associations are smaller but consistent, with some evidence of dose-dependency.
The populations at highest risk are adolescents (who are still in active neurodevelopment), daily users, and people with family history of psychotic or mood disorders. The "cannabis helps my anxiety" experience that many users report is real in the short term but appears to coexist with a worse long-term mental-health trajectory.
This page is a draft. The full writeup will separate the short-term subjective experience from the long-term population-level data.