Chronic pain patients are more likely to respond favourably to cannabis than they are to prescription analgesics, according to data published in the journal Pain. Researchers affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh assessed outcomes in 440 pain patients certified to consume medical cannabis products and 8,114 pain patients prescribed traditional analgesics.
They reported that those in the cannabis-treatment cohort were slightly more likely than controls to experience clinically meaningful improvements in their pain. Investigators further reported that subjects who used both cannabis and opioids were more likely to reduce their opioid use over time as compared to those who did not. “Our results do point to possible use [of cannabis] as an adjunct in trying to wean opioids successfully” they wrote.
The study’s authors concluded that medical cannabis was comparatively more effective than prescription medication treatment for chronic pain, with the odds of responding being 2.6 times higher in the medical cannabis group with twice the predicted probability of a positive response. Data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that nearly one in three patients with chronic pain use cannabis as an analgesic agent and many of those who do substitute it in place of opioids.
Read more from NORML here.
23 February, 2025