London, United Kingdom: Four hundred patients at thirty-five hospitals nationwide will participate in an upcoming clinical trial assessing marijuana’s effectiveness in the treatment of post-operative pain, Britain’s Medical Research Council has announced.
The study’s participants will be randomly assigned one of four oral treatments following surgery including standardized cannabis extract, THC, a standard analgesic, or a placebo. Researchers will then assess how well patients respond to pain over a six hour period following treatment.
A 1998 report by The British House of Lords Science and Technology Committee highlighted marijuana’s pain-relieving properties, stating, “There is scientific evidence that cannabinoids possess pain-relieving properties, and some clinical evidence to support their medical use in this indication.” The report recommended reclassifying cannabis so that physicians could legally prescribe it as an analgesic, but Parliament rejected that recommendation.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of the NORML Foundation at (202) 483-8751.