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A new study suggests that nearly two-thirds of US patients who use marijuana for medical purposes use it as a treatment for chronic pain. This is consistent with the large number of Americans suffering from chronic pain and the strong scientific evidence that marijuana is an effective treatment for pain, the authors reported online Feb. 4 in Health Affairs.
Thirty-three US states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medical purposes since 1996 and 10 states have legalized it for recreational purposes since 2012, the study team noted. . Patients receiving cannabis for medical purposes must obtain a license in states where this is legal, and licenses require a doctor to certify that patients have a medical condition that may benefit from marijuana treatment.
As part of this study, researchers examined data from state registers indicating the number of patients who use marijuana for medical purposes and the conditions under which they found the drug to be treated. Twenty states and the District of Columbia had records that tracked the total number of patients using cannabis for medical purposes, and 15 states followed conditions that qualified patients for the drug.
Overall, 65% of medical marijuana patients used it to relieve their chronic pain. After that, the most common reasons patients used cannabis were multiple sclerosis, nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and post-traumatic stress disorder.
On the basis of a report published in 2017 by the National Academies of Science and having evaluated the scientific evidence supporting the use of marijuana to treat specific conditions, the research team also examined the frequency at which medical uses are based on evidence. They found that the uses had significant support in 86% of cases.
"The vast majority of conditions for which people consume cannabis have substantial or conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of cannabis," said lead author Kevin Boehnke of the study. 39, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI.
"However, that does not mean that it will be easy for them to understand how best to use cannabis or cannabinoids to treat their disorders," Boehnke said by e-mail.
Indeed, even though many states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, the federal government still clbadifies it as an "Schedule 1" substance with no medical use and potential for abuse. high. Unlike traditional prescription medications, there are no clinical guidelines for marijuana for medical purposes, Boehnke said.
"Patients suffering from medical cannabis are in a position where they usually have no choice but to experiment to find the optimal dosage regimen," Boehnke added. "Safety is definitely a concern, especially when you smoke or take high doses of THC."
"The way medical cannabis is actually used in daily medical practice still poses many problems, but this article rebadures a little about the fact that it is used in many cases to treat the right medical conditions," he said. said Dr. Kevin Hill, director of addiction psychiatry at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.
A national patient registry would better understand how patients use marijuana for medical purposes and whether it is safe or effective for these conditions, conclude the study's authors. In the meantime, patients should consider cannabis as an option to discuss with a doctor after the failure of other traditional treatments, Hill said, not involved in the study, by mail electronic.
"Many doctors in cannabis clinics will give certifications to those who will pay the price, and the level of care follow-up is often poor," Hill said.
"One way to change this is to improve the education of medical professionals on medical cannabis so that they feel more comfortable certifying patients where appropriate and are more likely to provide helpful advice to patients about the type of cannabis to get how to dose it, and what side effects to look for, "added Hill.
"At present," hangmen "often play a bigger role in medical cannabis than doctors – and that must change."
-Lisa Rapaport
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