Methadone Rehabilitation

Question by T: Anyone heard of treating heroin addiction and depression with marijuana?
I am looking for websites or articles that talk about this issue. This is a serious question and I would really appreciate serious answers. I know that marijuana has medicinal uses and that depression and heroin addiction are treated with pharmaceutical drugs. I am looking for current, credible research on the issue…please…thanks :o)

Best answer:

Answer by Eric L
No, heroin addiction and depression are not good things to be treated by marijuana. First of all, heroin addiction is not like other addictions: when you “kick it” you go through physical withdrawals, and it is very painful and unpleasant. Marijuana would not help that, other than with the nausea some people report when going through withdrawal. However, marijuana would most likely increase the anxiety one feels when in withdrawal. And depression is a terrible thing to treat with marijuana. Prescription medications such as Zoloft and other SSRI’s “fix” your depression by regulating your serotonin re-uptake, whereas marijuana increases it temporarily to a level where you get euphoria, and then when the marijuana wears off, the serotonin levels plummet below the level they were at before using marijuana.

Answer by just me
I do NOT think it is safe or appropriate for every person in these situations to use marijuana. However, I think for some, under the direction of their doctor, it could be helpful.

Part of the problem with detox *is* the immense amount of physical pain. Being that most pain meds are narcotic and also chemically addictive, that makes it difficult. They do have other meds that can help, and I am certainly not in a position to say which med is appropriate for each patient. For some people, yes, the marijuana would create unpleasant effects such as increasing the anxiety. But for other people, it may calm the anxiety without using something that is potentially just as addictive.

Some research has shown that long term chronic marijuana use *does* worsen depression, and even mild use can cause problems with diagnoses like schizophrenia. However, there are also other studies that show controlled medical, low dosing of it, short term, can help alleviate it.

But even beyond that, its not like the meds used for depression are safe. At that point you are talking about meds that essentially rewire your brain, and there are many depression meds that cause chemical addiction long term, and are *INCREDIBLY* dangerouos to the patient if they suddently stop taking their meds.

But, in the end, if you want credible sources, my best suggestion is to go to the library and search journal articles. There would be some relating to this probably both in medical journals as well as psychological journals. Most libraries will have access to electronic databasis as well, which would give you access to pubmed, psychinfo and a couple other major electronic databases and journal/periodical crawl search engines.

And, make sure you know how to evaluate these articles. Read the abstract to get an over view of what the article is about, and actually read the paper. You can skim parts, I know its hard to read 50 pages articles. But pay attention to why they state the research is being done, what their hypothesis is if applicable, how the research was done, if experiments or surveys accounted for important variables, the conclusions the article draws.

Also, check the sources they use. Dont assume just because something is cited that the quote actually exists, or that they are citing credible sources themselves. Sometimes, you can even find things that are completely misquoted or taken way out of context of the original article.

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