Saint Paul, MN: Pain patients report significant improvements in their symptoms following enrollment in Minnesota’s medical cannabis access program, according to data published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics.
State regulators assessed the efficacy of state-authorized medical cannabis products in a cohort of more than 6,000 chronic pain patients registered in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program. Study participants self-selected which cannabis products to consume, with most patients (78 percent) choosing botanical cannabis. Patients’ pain symptoms were assessed at baseline, at four months, and at eight months.
Investigators reported, “This study of over 6,000 medical cannabis patients qualified for chronic or intractable pain found almost 55 percent of patients with moderate-to-severe scores at baseline were able to improve their life enjoyment and pain interference in general activity within four months of starting medical cannabis.” Most patients experienced improvements regardless of which type of cannabis products they consumed.
The study’s authors concluded: “Medical cannabis patients report reduction in PEG [Pain, Enjoyment, Life] scores within four months of first medical cannabis purchase using a variety of medical cannabis products. Future research on medical cannabis should determine the frequency of use of different products and administration methods to further investigate how cannabis can be used for effective pain management in patients with chronic pain.”
Data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association report that nearly one in three patients with chronic pain use cannabis as an analgesic agent, and many of those who do substitute it in place of opioids.
Full text of the study, “Benefits of medical cannabis in patients with pain registered in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program,” appears in Clinical Therapeutics. Additional information on cannabinoids and chronic pain is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids.