Marijuana for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
Could marijuana be helpful for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? The possibility is raised by a newly published case report in Cannabinoids, the journal of the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine. Doctors from the Heidelberg University Medical Center in Heidelberg, Germany, report on an adult ADHD sufferer who exhibited classic ADHD behavior — pushy, impatient, having trouble focusing or responding to questions appropriately — and who had not been helped by Ritalin, a standard ADHD treatment, but whose symptoms essentially disappeared after smoking marijuana. The authors also discuss animal research that suggests cannabinoids may be effective against ADHD, as well as a human study suggesting that moderate marijuana use may have helped ADHD patients with cocaine dependence stay in treatment.
Some studies have found an association between marijuana use and ADHD symptoms, often drawing the inference that marijuana is worsening ADHD, or that ADHD sufferers are at risk for “drug abuse.” But what if they’re self-medicating and — in at least some cases — actually helping reduce their symptoms?
Tagged with: cannabinoids and Medical Marijuana and science by the author
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I’m a 25 year old male with ADHD. I’ve have been diagnosed for about 8 yrs. and tried the entire rainbow of kidney and heart destroying drugs that are on the market. These did work, however they are expensive and in my opinion, not worth the physical risk. about 4 yrs. ago I experimented with marijuana to see if that was a plausable lower risk therapy. In low doses (1 to 2 puffs every couple of hours as needed) it did not produce any adverse side effect, excluding coughing, and did control my ADHD.
This is my testimony published in the french book : Michka : “Cannabis Médical : du chanvre indien au THC de synthèse” (Mamaedition 2009) :
I had my first contacts with cannabis in Canada, Québec, at the age of 21, during my studies in an Engineer School, Montréal. At that period, and since the beginning of my University training, I was drinking too much, for unexplained and unknown reasons. Since that time, Cannabis, which I consumed in society with friends, had a very positive impact on my mood, making me feel relaxed and calm. I remember well, one day, between two courses, saying to myself ;” I will smoke all my life to always feel like this all the time”. Generally dysphoriac (anxious and negative mood), extremely negative and feeling like in black (until uncontrollable suicidal tendencies), I was feeling light and calm, with a deep impression of well being.
Since this year 1994, I started consuming cannabis regularly, every day, always in rational quantities, depending on the product quality found on the illegal black market. My consumption, spaced in the day, has always started early in the morning, with a coffee, like a ritual to have a good positive kick to start the day in a positive, creative and relaxed mood. Naturally, this consumption installed itself, naturally, in my student life first, and then in my husband/engineer role, and finally in my divorced father role since 2004. Reducing my stress and anxiety, my cannabis consumption never puts me in troubles, nor at University and after. I have always been able to live a healthy and active life. I was even able to get mu Metallurgy Master Degree with congratulations of the jury board.
With alcohol, my experiences lead me to the opposite conclusions. It took to me 17 years of regular alcohol consumption, with chronic alcoholic periods, to realize the danger of that product for me and my mental health, even if it was a legal and culturally well accepted product. My numerous violence crises under alcohol, which started the first year of alcohol consumption (18 years old), lead me two times in hospital. I first get there for hand mutilation due to windows breaking with nude hands. The second time, due to unlucky coincidences, was particularly catastrophic.
This dramatic event started the 31th of December 2004. It was the end of the year of my divorce, which made me loss everything I tried to built since there (house, kids, wife, …). This day, since early in the afternoon, was marked by an excessive alcohol consumption, including strong white alcohol in the evening. I lost the control of myself around 3 o’clock in the night, when I come back to my empty apartment, without wife and kids. Frustration is so strong, and alcohol making inhibition out of order, makes the last wall of my consciousness fall. Then a violent rage of destruction explodes and takes the control of myself. It was like a half-conscious state, half psycho pathetic, where internal frustrations are so much strong that I cannot control them. I destroy everything in my home, except the TV and the computer, and start to calm down before the Police arrives, called by the neighbourhood for heavy noise. Important detail, I will only get a few years later: that day, since the evening, getting drunk, I hadn’t consumed cannabis, and Police arrives before I could to calm down myself.
I am handcuffed and put in jail for the night. My internal impulsivity, trapped inside, tries, like a survival instinct, to get out of myself and out of this closed cell I am imprisoned in. A few hours pass, the authority, seeing my madness and increasing hand mutilations, decides to inject to me 20 mg Valium® (benzodiazepine), a classical sedative which effect is generally to calm down. The effect on me is paradoxical: I become much more violent and the loss of control increases. Several years after this event, I will discover the reason of that paradoxical reaction to benzodiazepine. That time it leads me to a psychiatric hospital under the authority decision (mandatory confinement).
Entering my room in the psychiatric hospital, I lose my control again, break a few things, and I am immediately placed in an isolation cell by the Security staff, for two days. I am injected Valium® again. The two days pass, alone in the cell, like dying, without eating and under forced medication.
1st day : Aotal® (alcoholic stop), Imovane® (somnifère), Loxapac® (di-benzodiazépine), Valium® (benzodiazepine).
2d day : Aotal®, Imovane®, Loxapac®, Valium®
3rd day : Aotal®, Loxapac®, Parkinane®, Valium®
4th day : Parkinane®, Valium®
I get out of isolation cell after two days, feeling very weak, empty, like a zombie. At the third day awakening in my bed early in the morning, my brain is out of order: in a half awaken state; I have an experience that my psychiatrist will identify as a “Near Death Experience” (NDE – wide white light, etc …). Three days after, I finally leave the Hospital, my mandatory confinement is over. I am a zombie and cannot even write a word by myself. But I am alive. For the second time of my life, I am born.
It took a long quest to finally understand that event, the most critical of my life, and all the rest : my impulsive behavior, my abnormal cannabis consumption, my dangerous relation to alcohol and my hyper-anxiety doubled by deep onychophagia (fingernails beating and mutilation) and functional colopathia (intestinal pains, stress).
My quest started in 2002, when my ex-wife, who had worked in many psychiatric jobs, pushes me to see a psychiatrist. I make this difficult step, and I am oriented toward an addiction psycho-analysist. The psycho-analysis exercise fits well to my natural intellectual functioning, and I decide to start a psycho-analysis. It will last 4 years during which I had my divorce and several hard times (including my mandatory confinement).
Despite all the hard times, I continue the analysis, and the old big bag of my remains is getting more and more empty, helping me to be conscious of all my old-running symptoms since very young : hyper-impulsivity, hyper-anxiety state, dysphoria and fear of everything. After 4 years, the analysis made it possible to improve my mental health (SELF reinforcement), but two mysteries stand: my strong onychophagia and my abnormal cannabis consumption. At that period, my psycho-analysist advised me to see another psychiatrist (the 7th!) specialized in behavior, and to tell him about my onychophagia.
That meeting will lead me to the final discovery …..
After a few consultations, the behavior psychiatrist suspects an Attention Deficit Disorder case, recently described as an Autistic Spectrum Disorder ASD. I pass several behavior tests (standard DSMM-IV, American psychiatry). In the first quarter of 2008, the diagnosis is confirmed by another child psychiatrist (the 8th) and a Dutch doctor.
The key of everything is then found for me: I am ADD, and all my symptoms are in relation with it : hyper-impulsivity, anxiety, alcoholic tendencies, suicidal tendencies, dysphoria, depression). ADD, which found its roots in the central nervous system, concerns 3 to 5 % of the Eastern population. Well known and recognized in United States and Canada, ADD is currently badly recognized in France where it concerns between 180 000 to 300 000 persons. It is largely accepted that ADD is caused first by a predominant genetic factor, and that environmental factors are also of major importance (education, nutrition).
My diagnosis, confirmed in March 2008, is a revelation for me who try to understand what is happening in my brain for 30 years! The ADD explains all my excessive behaviors, but also my paradoxical reaction to Benzodiazepine (Valium ®) which has caused my confinement. Instead of being calmed down with Valium ®, it is known that ADDers hyperactivity is increased paradoxically. My surprise is at its maximum intensity when I learn that it is legal to treat ADD with medical cannabis in Canada, some US states and Dutch land.
The loop is then closed: I am suffering from a genetic based mental disease which origin, and many papers demonstrate it, is in relation with the endo-cannabinoid system ECS. For instance, it is proven that CB1 deficient mice are impulsive, as well as it is proven that CB2 deficient mice have a predisposition to alcoholism. In addition, ADDers are often subject to metabolic system deficiency (intolerance to gluten, casein, phosphate) which is possibly also correlated to the ECS. The ECS is involved in the emotional response and the reaction to the environment. Autistics, for instance, has deficient ECS which impacts the fear management. In my case, the phyto-cannabinoids contained in cannabis, administrated orally (caps, food) or by smoke, are very efficient to treat my symptoms and fits me very well. Moretheless, today, there is no efficient alternative medication to treat ADD except Methylphenidate, derived from amphetamine (Ritaline ®, Concerta ®), which are not recommended to nervous and anxious patients.
Since March 2008, I am consulting a Dutch Doctor, who prescribes to me medical cannabis, Bedrocan ®, delivered in Dutch pharmacies. Applying this treatment, doubled with an appropriate and healthy diet (including omega 3 complement via hemp oil), I am now much more healthy and well being. My fingernails have grown normally, sign of a new interior peace. Now, I don’t drink no more alcohol excessively, and I don’t need no other medication (anti-depression, narcoleptics, anxiolytics, sedatives or any other synthetic drugs).
I was diagnosed with ADD and Dyslexia as a child (7th Grade, 1983). I was prescribed Ritalin in 1985. I remember taking the prescription drug and feeling wired. I recall that I craved nicotine (at such and early age and I was not a smoker) and had a nervous/anxious feeling while the drug was running its course. I do recall that I was able to study and focus better than without it but I did not like the way I felt, including low appetite and insomnia. However in 1987 I experimented with marijuana and while I did not understand the benefit, at the time, other than the “high” feeling, I could control my thoughts and I could focus better and longer. I was able to be more productive overall.
I stopped taking Ritalin in 1988 and have not taken it since. I have smoked marijuana most every day since. Mostly moderate but daily. Not before work, especially in my professional life, but always in the evening. I am a 38 year old executive at a fortune 100 company in a leadership position. I am active in sports and am an avid triathlete completing two Ironman events. I still smoke daily and am convinced that I perform better in terms of focus, creativity, putting my thoughts in writing, planning etc. while under the influence of marijuana. I have been smoking for 21 years and have not noticed side affects. Maybe a little spacey/dreamy when I am not in a social setting, slight short term memory but have an excellent long term memory. I sleep and eat great (Side effects: I don’t sleep great if I go more then 5 days without marijuana, so I take Tylenol PM and also start to become irritable).
My wife is a registered nurse and I am a fully functional professional. I did not outgrow my early diagnosis. Marijuana has been a great symptom reliever. I strongly agree that there is a connection with marijuana and ADD, ADHD. It is ashame that I have been in the “closet” with my family and co-workers for so long. I am hopeful that more will benefit as I feel I have with further US leadership embracement.
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My name Armando i was diagnois ADDHD when i was five years old since then i took Riltain all the way to my freshmen year until they put me on Adderall because Riltian wasn’t help me nomore i did concenate more in class bt i did’nt like the feelin of bieng a zombie and i have low appetite. Now I take Adderall XR bt i still dnt like the feeling being wierd and have no appetite sometime skip meals because the medcation still in my system bt there time i dnt take the medcation i dnt take the medcation and smoke marijuana yes help me i concenrate more on work and actitives and be social with everyone and i eat my regular meals i just want advice if marijuana good for me because i dnt like the feeling of having no appetite and feeling wierd i be waiting for your comments
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