Patients with chronic pain who use medical cannabis for pain relief do not experience serious side effects.
Researchers at the McGill University Health Center (Canada) followed 215 adult patients with chronic pain who were taking medical cannabis. This cohort of patients was compared to a control group of 216 patients. Patients had access to cannabis in the form of herbal containing 12.5% THC from a licensed cannabis producer. They only used cannabis after going through the necessary medical appointments and tests. They consumed an average of 2.5 grams of cannabis per day.
The researchers studied the side effects and assessed the participants’ lung function.
“This is the first large-scale study on the long-term safety of cannabis use in patients with chronic pain,” says lead author Dr. Mark Ware, pain specialist at the General Hospital of Montreal from the MUHC and Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Anesthesia at McGill University.
The results of the study revealed that medical cannabis did not cause side effects.
“We have found that medical cannabis appears to have an advantageous safety profile when used by patients who are considered experienced users and who participate in a therapeutic program for chronic pain over a period of one year” explains Dr. Mark Ware, of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC) in Montreal in a press release.
“Our data shows that daily cannabis users were no more likely to experience serious side effects than non-users (control group),” explains Dr. Aline Boulanger, clinical professor in the University’s Department of Anesthesiology. of Montreal and one of the co-authors of the study and director of the Center of Expertise for Chronic Pain at the Center Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. “We found no evidence of adverse effects on cognitive and lung functions or in blood tests from cannabis users. Conversely, we found that cannabis users tolerated pain significantly better, exhibited less symptom distress and reported having a better mood and a better quality of life compared to the control group. ”
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