Can cannabis make you hypersexual?

Over the past twenty years, cannabis has stopped being known as the cause of Reefer Madness and started being known as a natural aphrodisiac (among other things) – but can cannabis really make you hypersexual?

By medical definition, hypersexuality is a state where people suffer from sexual compulsions that put them at risk. In everyday life, we tend to use the term hypersexual to describe people that have frequent sex – whether casual or otherwise. 

Back in 2014, a study published in JAMA Psychiatry examined the sexual behaviour with cannabis use for 2,235 people, aged 18 to 24.

Researchers discovered that the more often a person used cannabis, the more likely they were to have sex with a casual partner.

This isn’t the only research into cannabis and hypersexuality. In another 2017 study published in the journal of Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, researchers found a positive correlation between cannabis use and hypersexuality in university students. 

Similar results were found by researchers in the Netherlands. In the study published in the journal Addiction, researchers found that the more cannabis participants consumed, the higher their chances of engaging in casual sex. Interestingly, men in the study had more casual sex than women did.

Women’s sexual behaviour was studied separately in a paper published in the journal Sexual Medicine. The study asked 127 women if cannabis improved their sex life, and if so, why. The study concluded that cannabis improved sex by increasing the chances of the women having an orgasm, increasing their sex drive and decreasing their pain. 

Lead researcher and director of the US Centre for Sexual Health, Becky Lynn M.D, suggested in the study that cannabis increased sex quality and drive by lowering anxiety. In the study, she wrote:

(Cannabis) may lower sexual inhibitions and increase confidence and a willingness to experiment.

Despite the strong findings of these studies, they all have the same problem: they can’t tell us if cannabis causes people to become hypersexual, or hypersexual people just like cannabis as much as they like sex. 

What do you think?