Overview

• A study in Annals of Internal Medicine examined 1.73 million certifications issued from November 2017 through December 2023 using Pennsylvania Department of Health data.
• Monthly medical cannabis certifications climbed from about 11,000 in June 2019 to 30,000 by December 2023, driven predominantly by anxiety diagnoses.
• After regulators added anxiety as a qualifying condition in July 2019, anxiety accounted for 60 percent of certifications while shares for chronic pain and PTSD fell to 41 percent and 11 percent respectively.
• Researchers were unable to assess how many patients newly enrolled for anxiety versus switched from other conditions or how the overall program size changed.
• Experts caution that clinical evidence for cannabis treating anxiety remains scant and call for more granular research to close critical data gaps.