Toronto, Canada: Vaporized cannabis containing ten percent THC provides symptomatic relief to patients with Tourette Syndrome (TS), according to placebo-controlled data published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.
Canadian researchers assessed the short-term effects of vaporized cannabis of varying potencies versus placebo in nine patients with TS.
They reported that subjects exhibited and perceived modest improvements following the administration of THC-dominant cannabis, but that they failed to demonstrate similar improvements following the use of either lower THC cannabis and/or high-CBD cannabis. Researchers acknowledged, “[G]iven the small sample size, … it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the benefits of THC.”
Prior studies assessing the long-term use of oral THC have documented a reduction in tics in TS patients. The findings of a 2019 study concluded, “Medical cannabis seems to hold promise in the treatment of GTS [Gilles de la Tourette syndrome] as it demonstrated high subjective satisfaction by most patients however not without side effects and should be further investigated as a treatment option for this syndrome.”
Full text of the study, “A double-blind, randomized, controlled crossover trial of cannabis in adults with Tourette Syndrome,” appears in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. Additional information on cannabis and TS is available from NORML.