Marijuana As Medicine? The Science Beyond the Controversy (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Marijuana and Pain
Marijuana and Pain
Pages 77-85
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From page 77... ...
Because marijuana is used to treat pain under such diverse circumstances and because the IOM team determined that marijuana appears to be a promising source of analgesic medications, the next chapter is devoted to discussing the performance of marijuana and cannabinoids in clinical studies of pain relief. The nerve signals that our brains interpret as pain originate in 77
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From page 78... ...
For acute pain, such as the discomfort that follows surgery, doctors typically prescribe opiates: narcotic drugs derived from, or chemically similar to, opium. For chronic pain, however, opiates rarely bring relief.
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From page 79... ...
However, after critically reviewing existing research on THC and pain relief, the IOM team concluded that cannabinoids can provide mild to moderate relief from pain, on a par with codeine. The IOM team also determined that the body's own cannabinoid system likely plays a natural role in pain control.
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From page 80... ...
In the first, volunteers who each had four molars extracted on separate occasions received the local anesthetic lidocaine plus one of the following treatments, given intravenously, with each successive tooth extraction: two different concentrations of THC, the sedative tranquilizer diazepam (Valium) , and a placebo.
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From page 81... ...
The authors do not reveal whether all patients who took the THC analog felt its effects to some extent or whether some people obtained great relief while others found it had little or no effect on their postoperative pain.4 The most encouraging and believable clinical studies of cannabinoids focus on chronic pain in cancer patients. Cancer causes pain in a variety of ways, including inflammation, nerve injury, and the invasion of bone and other sensitive tissue by growing tumors.
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From page 82... ...
In a subsequent study the same researchers compared the effects of a single potent dose of THC with that of a relatively weak narcotic pain reliever, codeine. They found that 10 milligrams of THC gave the same pain relief as a 60-milligram (moderately strong)
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From page 83... ...
For example, in a recent survey of more than 100 regular marijuana users with multiple sclerosis, nearly every participant reported that marijuana helped relieve spasticity and limb pain (see Chapter 7~.8 Likewise, many paraplegic patients interviewed in an earlier survey stated that smoking marijuana relieved phantom limb pain and headache.9 Similar anecdotal evidence has accumulated for the treatment of migraine headaches with marijuana, and marijuana is often mentioned as a "cure" for migraines. Yet the IOM team located only one scientific report on that subject published since 1975.
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From page 84... ...
If additional cannabinoids relieve pain, researchers must then consider which cannabinoids or combinations thereof work best. Although there has been very little clinical pain research on marijuana, the findings support positive results from animal and other basic experiments.
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From page 85... ...
Participants, who would be fully informed of their status as experimental subjects and the harms inherent in using smoking as a delivery system, would have their condition documented while they continued using marijuana. By analyzing the results of such trials, medical scientists could significantly increase their knowledge of both the positive and the negative effects of medical marijuana use.
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