Among the conditions that medical marijuana is currently used to treat is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This disorder is known to cause a wide range of disruptions in the lives of people who suffer it. It is most classically associated with returning soldiers who have served in combat. PTSD, however, can be suffered by anybody who has endured a very traumatizing event. People who have suffered abuse, violent crime, life-threatening illnesses and other traumatic incidents sometimes walk away from the situation physically intact, but have a difficult time recovering mentally. Medical marijuana has been found in several studies to offer benefits for such individuals.
Getting Recognized
Medical marijuana is getting recognized as a viable treatment for many different disorders, not all of them physical. PTSD is oftentimes associated with trouble sleeping, difficulty controlling temper, sometimes suicidal thoughts and, in some cases, outbursts of violence. Medical marijuana has been shown to help treat the symptoms, which clears a path for people affected by PTSD to begin the healing process.
Understanding how this works really requires no more than understanding the basics of what makes people happy. Despite the fact that there are plenty of philosophical debates about that subject, medical science actually does know a lot about what makes people happy and about human well-being.
Elevated Mood
Some of the effects of medical marijuana are used to treat conditions similar to PTSD, but that are not entirely the same. For instance, medical marijuana is sometimes prescribed to people who have anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. Both of these conditions are associated with PTSD. Like anxiety and depression, PTSD symptoms can sometimes be alleviated by the elevated mood that medical marijuana causes. Patients who use medical marijuana may find themselves more interested in activities that they had lost interest in, better able to concentrate and, quite simply, able to get out of their own thoughts for a while so that they can enjoy some relief.
In some ways, medical marijuana is far preferable to a lot of people than are pharmaceutical drugs used to treat the same conditions. Some of those pharmaceutical drugs have been shown to have extremely dangerous side effects, even going so far as to induce homicidal behavior in certain individuals who have been treated with them. Medical marijuana’s side effects are widely known to be minimal. In addition to this, there are many different strains of medical marijuana from which a patient can choose, some of which have more calming effects and some of which have more exciting, invigorating effects.
From soldiers returning from the battlefield to people who have dealt with difficult life circumstances, people who suffer from PTSD are oftentimes turning toward medical marijuana as a viable means of getting relief. For some of these people, simply being able to feel happy again without using a pharmaceutical drug with dangerous side effects is far preferable to any other treatment. This is only one of the reasons that medical marijuana has become so widely accepted and is recognized as being so beneficial.
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