Mindfulness therapy in the management of cannabis dependency

Abstract

Marijuana is one of the most common used drugs, that affects brain function and is linked with further mental health conditions. Mindfulness interventions aim to improve focus on experience and emotional reactions to help people with various problems in finding out, identify, and comprehend the roots to their behaviour. Many studies illustrate the impact of mindfulness interventions but still only a few had been carried out focusing on the effects of mindfulness in relation to marijuana addiction and recovery. The research question to this dissertation reads: Is mindfulness therapy effective in the management of marijuana addiction and recovery? The inclusion standards comprised of peer-reviewed articles that have been written in English language and published in the last 10 years. In addition research included adult individuals that hold any religion, race, and ethnicity. It also incorporated studies that focused on cannabis dependency and the relationship between mindfulness and cannabis use. The exclusion measures rejected studies that are non peer reviewed, as well as studies published before 2011, studies that included polydrug use, and studies which included individuals under 18 years of age. The exploration process resulted in two randomised controlled trials that were critiqued and appraised by the use of Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (2009) by Burls and another three cross-sectional studies evaluated and critiqued by the use of AXIS (2006) The overall results revealed that mindfulness intervention had a general positive impact on marijuana use, dependencies, and other issues related to the participants’ cannabis use. Further research is recommended to progress in this subject and improve marijuana management and addiction care, due to limitations in previous studies such as small sample sizes, lacking generalizability. Additionally, most of the authors recommended further investigation in order to advance in education, practice and policies in this field.