Science and data have made clear marijuana has some medical benefits. More research needs to be done, but cannabis has been used as medicine for a 1,000 years. One area still being explored is in the bedroom. the most common sexual disorder in men younger than 40 years, with 30-70% of males in the United States affected to some degree at one time or another. A doctor weights in on marijuana in the bedroom and how it may help.
All of us in the sexual healthcare profession are asked about premature ejaculation, its causes and treatments. It is an embarrassing topic for many men to address and therefore is not often discussed among friends. Those of us in healthcare are open to discussions, but we have not had major improvements in our treatments for many years.
Premature ejaculation may be underreported, but estimates of those who are affected range up to 30 percent. Basically, this means that men experience an ejaculation within a minute of penetration, ejaculate prior to penetration or they are unable to delay ejaculation some or all of the time.
Most commonly, I have seen this in men early in their sexual experience or with anxiety, intermittent sexual experiences or erectile dysfunction. There are other less common causes, however.
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As a urologist, I have taught men and partners the “squeeze technique” to delay orgasm. This is done by squeezing behind the head of the penis during foreplay to decrease sensation and reset the orgasmic pattern over time. This requires time, work and, if another is involved, a committed partner.
We have also used local anesthetics (which can have a side effect of being less pleasurable to the partner), condoms to decrease sensation, and antidepressants (which can also have a side effect of a decreased libido).
So a question remains: Will consuming cannabis help delay orgasm?
This is a very intriguing question with very little reported data. A landline telephone study of the ages 16-64 was done at La Trobe in Australia in 2009 and reported in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. The findings were very interesting. There were 126 people using cannabis daily. It was found that in this group men were four times more likely to have difficulties reaching orgasm, but also were 3 times more likely to have premature ejaculation. These results certainly make it difficult to decide if cannabis will improve a romp in bed.
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One of the weaknesses of the study has to do with the fact that only landlines were used. Could this be a different population than what we would see in cell phone users? So the jury is still out as to whether or not a specialist in sexual medicine should recommend or discourage cannabis for ejaculatory issues in men.
My advice is that if premature ejaculation is due to anxiety and the patient is already an occasional smoker, a low dose of cannabis which can alleviate anxiety may help the situation. A higher dose may have the effect of causing impotency or difficulty in reaching an orgasm.
All of this is very user-dependent and may require trial and error which can be very satisfying or very frustrating for one or two people. Hopefully our doctor’s take on cannabis to last longer in bed if helpful.
