Due to its mind-altering psychoactive effects, marijuana tends to have binary anecdotal effects on anxiety. Many have heard of others feeling scarily anxious when high, while others have claimed it calms and relaxes them.
The body naturally produces its own endocannabinoids, which regulate anxiety and the body's flight-or-fight response to stress by dampening excitatory signals in the brain, according to a 2014 study. Marijuana's own cannabinoids (like THC or tetrahydrocannabinol and CBD or cannabidiol) do the same, helping to stabilize mood like an opioid would. But it's a double-edged sword, and chronic use can desensitize users, Vice reported.
Read more: Does Marijuana Cause Mental Illness? What We Know About the Long-Term Effects of Weed
From the study, the researchers hypothesize that some marijuana users don't naturally create enough endocannabinoids and then fall into a dependency on marijuana or other drugs. Long-term users have self-reported panic attack-like highs, according to a Reddit thread on the
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