Cannabis Is An ‘Effective Treatment' For Chronic Pain, Study Finds
The use of medical cannabis is an 'effective treatment option' for chronic pain patients, according to the findings of a recent study. The research also found that chronic pain patients who used cannabis for at least on year 'exhibited significantly lower healthcare utilization' than non-users and had better quality of life.
The study, which was published last week in the journal Pharmacy, was written by researchers with the Florida-based medical cannabis telehealth company Leafwell and George Mason University in Virginia. The findings also showed that chronic pain patients who used cannabis reported fewer visits to urgent care centers and hospital emergency departments (EDs).
Additionally, the data showed that hospitalization rates were lower among chronic pain patients who used medical marijuana, although the difference was not sufficient to be considered statistically significant.
'Exposure [to cannabis] was associated with a 2.0 percentage point reduction in urgent care visits, a 3.2 percentage point reduction in ED visits and fewer unhealthy days per month,' according to a report from online cannabis news source Marijuana Moment.
'The findings of this study suggest, in line with existing research, that medical cannabis is likely an effective treatment option for patients with chronic pain,' authors wrote. 'This underscores the potential for not only [quality of life]
The self-reported data used for the study was collected from chronic pain patients by Leafwell. The telehealth platform operates in 36 states, connecting physicians with patients seeking certification to use medical cannabis.
'The cannabis-exposed group included individuals who had used medical cannabis within the prior year and were seeking recertification of their medical card through Leafwell,' the authors wrote, 'while the unexposed group comprised first-time Leafwell patients who self-reported no cannabis use in the past year.'
Study Of More Than 5,000 Chronic Pain Patients
The study included data from 5,242 chronic pain patients. Of them, 3,943 reported using cannabis over the past year, while the remaining 1,299 participants reported no past-year cannabis use.
Mitchell Doucette, senior research director at Leafwell and the lead author of the study, said the findings show that medical cannabis can improve the lives of chronic pain patients.
'We looked at a large set of real-world data, where we compared medical cannabis users who we knew used for at least one year and people who had never used cannabis,' Doucette told Marijuana Moment. 'When we compared those groups, we found that medical cannabis users who had used for at least one year had lower rates of emergency room visits, lower rates of urgent care visits and, importantly, increased quality of life.'
'When we combine those outcomes,' added Doucette, who has a doctorate in health and public policy from Johns Hopkins, 'it suggests that medical cannabis is not only leading to better quality of life for chronic pain patients but, again, potentially better health outcomes.'
Doucette noted that some previous studies have explored quality-of-life improvements among medical cannabis patients, and other research has studied healthcare outcomes, 'but really this is the first study to kind of connect these two dots.'
Overall, Doucette said, it is becoming increasingly apparent that medical marijuana 'is a helpful medicinal product for certain groups of people' and that healthcare systems 'should try to alleviate access and cost margins for those individuals who it may be too costly of a product for them to access.'
Cannabis And Chronic Pain
The Leafwell study is consistent with other research into the use of medical cannabis as a treatment for chronic pain. Also last week, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reported on the results of German study showing that cannabis extracts significantly reduced pain and improved mental health for chronic pain patients who used it.
'Our findings indicate that treatment with medicinal cannabis improves both physical and mental health in patients with chronic pain,' the study's authors concluded. 'The results suggest that medicinal cannabis might be a safe alternative for patients who are inadequately treated with conventional therapies.'
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