There are several lines of evidence suggesting either therapeutic potential or harmful effects associated with cannabis use in psychiatric populations. In this section, we provide an overview of the current scientific literature on the effects of cannabis across schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A recent report by the National Academies of Sciences [109] assessed the potential therapeutic effects and harms of cannabis in detail, concluding that there are many gaps of which remain across the scientific literature. In order to understand what the evidence currently suggests about both the acute and long-term effects of cannabis in mental illness, high-quality studies (see Table 1) will be discussed. Search strategies for this review included PubMED and PSYCHinfo to select appropriate studies for the analysis.
