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Mental health is a serious problem in the United States today. Thankfully, people are starting to become more understanding and knowledgeable about things related to mental health conditions, but I still think that we definitely have a long way to go. Depression is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot - so much so, that sometimes the real meaning of it can get lost in the fuss.

The truth about depression is that it is an extremely dangerous and debilitating condition that affects millions of Americans each year. In fact, the rate of adults diagnosed with depression in the United States continues to climb each year. No doubt, the pandemic did not help with people suffering from mental health conditions. It is estimated that more than 16 million adults in the United States suffer from some sort of depression, and as I said earlier, this number continues to climb. So what can be done? Well, there are options out there to treat depression.

Therapy and medication have been heavily used to treat symptoms of depression to varying degrees of success. But using medications like antidepressants can be hit or miss. Many antidepressants actually can cause a patient to suffer from increased thoughts of suicide and feel more depressed than ever before. Additionally, a lot of these medications have some pretty awful side effects. What if there was a more natural, risk free approach to treating depression?

That is where marijuana comes in. More than 30 states have included some sort of depression as a qualifying condition in their state’s medical marijuana program, allowing people with this mental health disorder to use a variety of cannabis strains and products to treat their depression. Can marijuana really be an effective alternative to using something like an antidepressant? Well, keep reading if you would like to find out, because that is what I am going to be talking about today.

Since marijuana has not been legal for very long, we do not have the same amount of data and information from clinical studies and research that we do with other drugs. However, we do have some scientific evidence regarding marijuana’s effectiveness at treating depression. Many medical marijuana patients' own experiences suggest that marijuana may have a similar impact on depression as other medications, without many of the drawbacks and side effects that come from various antidepressants. In any case, marijuana has already been used to treat anxiety for so long, and anxiety and depression are very closely linked in most mental health cases.

Oftentimes, they are two sides of the same coin. However, medical experts would like to see more clinical trials done into the use of cannabis for depression before actually making a claim into its effectiveness. While I understand this, I don’t think that it should keep you from at least trying marijuana out yourself, especially if you have been avoiding other synthetic medications that are normally used to treat mental disorders. There are well over 700 different marijuana strains, and each one is pretty unique in its own way.

When it comes to using marijuana to treat depression, the most important thing is to talk to a doctor or other medical professional in order to determine what type of strain and product would be best for you. Remember, there are still risks for using any type of drug, even though marijuana is generally regarded as risk free. Sure, it won’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean that it comes with drawbacks. I hope that this article was helpful for you and that you learned a lot about marijuana!