Boston, MA: Patients living with HIV/AIDS report that medicinal cannabis is more effective at managing their symptoms than either prescription drugs or over-the-counter (OTC) medications, according to survey data published in the journal Clinical Nursing Research.
An international team of investigators assessed the use of cannabis as a self-care strategy for persons living with HIV/AIDS for six common symptoms: anxiety, depression, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and peripheral neuropathy (nerve pain).
Of the 775 subjects interviewed with HIV/AIDS over a two-year period, 27 percent said that they used marijuana therapeutically.
Researchers reported: “Marijuana use was rated slightly more effective than antidepressants for anxiety and depression, imodium for diarrhea, OTC medications for fatigue, and anti-epileptics and OTC medications for neuropathy.”
Investigators said that patients rated cannabis as “slightly less effective for nausea than either prescribed or OTC medications.”
Overall, HIV/AIDS patients reported experiencing slightly greater effectiveness from marijuana than they did legal alternatives.
“The results of this study indicate that marijuana … is perceived by users as at least as effective as prescribed medications in symptom management,” they concluded.
In 2007, investigators at Columbia University in New York published clinical trial data finding that inhaled cannabis substantially increased HIV/AIDS patients’ food intake at rates comparable to or more effective than oral THC (Marinol).
Commenting on the latest study, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said, “At a minimum inhaled cannabis is at least as effective at mitigating common HIV/AIDS-related symptoms as are legal medications, and in some cases, patients report obtaining superior relief from marijuana. Patients should not have to risk arrest and imprisonment for using this safe and effective therapeutic agent.”
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, “Marijuana effectiveness as an HIV self-care strategy,” appears in Clinical Nursing Research.