United Kingdom: A new health review has found that teenagers, young adults, pregnant women, drivers, and mentally ill people should avoid cannabis. The findings were based on an umbrella review conducted by an international expert team over the last two decades.
The in-depth evidence review of ‘cannabis and health’ was published in the medical journal BMJ. The study noted that even though cannabis compounds could help people with certain medical conditions, taking the drug could have an adverse effect on some other groups of people. The researchers analysed data from 101 meta-analyses on cannabis use. The studies were published from 2002 to 2022 and looked at the effects of different combinations of cannabis, cannabinoids, and cannabis-based medicines on health.
The review concluded that cannabis use was linked to poor mental health and cognition. Additionally, it increased the risk of car crashes among drivers and led to poor outcomes for babies when pregnant women used the drug.
The authors further stated that cannabis should be avoided among young people while their brains are still developing. The research team argued that most mental illnesses were first identified during the teenage years and young adulthood. Furthermore, this was also a period when “cognition is paramount for optimising academic performance and learning.”
However, researchers observed that cannabidiol was beneficial for people with epilepsy to help them avoid seizures. Cannabidiol can help reduce seizures in epilepsy patients, and cannabis-based medicines may help with multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, inflammatory bowel disease, and palliative care. But the authors stressed that the use of cannabis-based medicines was “not without adverse events”.
“Convincing or converging evidence recommends avoiding cannabis during adolescence and early adulthood in people prone to or having mental health disorders, who are pregnant, and while driving,” the researchers added.
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