London, United Kingdom: Patients diagnosed with substance use disorders (SUD) report improved sleep quality, reduced anxiety, and decreased opioid use following the sustained use of medical cannabis products, according to observational data published in the journal European Addiction Research.
British investigators assessed the use of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) in SUD patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. (British health care providers may prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products to patients unresponsive to conventional medications.) More than half (53 percent) of the participants suffered from an opioid use disorder. Patients’ outcomes were assessed at one, three, and six months.
“[T]herapy with CBMPs in patients with SUDs was associated with improvements in [patients’] anxiety, sleep quality and HRQoL [health-related quality of life] at 1, 3 and 6 months,” investigators reported. “Additionally, treatment with CBMPs was associated with a reduction in the median daily OME [oral morphine equivalent] from baseline to 6 months with no severe or life-threatening adverse events reported. These findings are in line with similar studies and broader data from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry for other conditions.”
The study’s authors concluded: “In the context of SUD, CBMPs may … play a role in the maintenance therapy of opiate-dependent individuals with co-morbid anxiety and sleep disorders or symptoms. … CBMPs may also play a role during tapering of opioid doses during maintenance therapy due to the prevalence of anxiety and sleep disruption in individuals experiencing withdrawal from medications. … Although capturing a 6-month follow-up is valuable, longitudinal data to see if PROMs [patient-reported outcome measures] would stay the same, improve further or instead decline would also prove useful in strengthening the evidence base for CBMPs in the treatment of substance use disorders.”
Survey data have previously reported that a significant percentage of patients undergoing opioid maintenance therapy acknowledge consuming cannabis to ease withdrawal symptoms and drug cravings.
Other observational studies assessing the use of cannabis products among those enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry have reported them to be effective for patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant epilepsy, cancer-related pain, anxiety, fibromyalgia, inflammatory bowel disease, hypermobility disorders, depression, migraine, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, and inflammatory arthritis, among other conditions.
Full text of the study, “UK Medical Cannabis Registry: A clinical analysis of patients with substance use disorder,” appears in the European Addiction Research. Additional information is available from the NORML Fact Sheet, ‘Relationship Between Marijuana and Opioids.’