Somewhat unexpectedly, current study data revealed that BD patients with CUD comorbidity were significantly less likely to present with an anxiety disorder at the time of hospital admission. These data directly contrast with prior research demonstrating significant associations between CUDs and anxiety disorders in general community samples [24,25]. Although it is possible that the nature or the direction of these associations may be different among patients with BD, it is also possible that, as a function of its potential short-term, time-limited anxiolytic effects for some patients [26], active cannabis use may have masked underlying anxiety symptoms when patients presented for treatment. Further, given that these data were collected within the context of an acute clinical service where clinicians may not have had sufficient time to fully assess or detect the presence of lifetime disorders, it is likely that the majority of chart diagnoses evaluated in the current study were based upon point versus lifetime prevalence. As such, positive associations between lifetime CUD comorbidity and anxiety disorders, as has been demonstrated in prior research [24,25,27], may have been more difficult to
