UK Study Finds That Inhaled Cannabis Reduces Pain And Anxiety
When it comes to medical cannabis, inhaled consumption methods can be seen as controversial within certain medical and political circles. After all, so much effort has been spent encouraging people to not smoke tobacco cigarettes, and many people see the two products as being one and the same. However, tobacco and cannabis are not the same thing, and studies demonstrate that.
Many lawmakers around the globe seem to be hesitant to legalize medical cannabis in forms that involve inhalation, which is unfortunate. For many suffering patients, inhaling cannabis is the cheapest and easiest way to consume their medicine, and given that inhaled cannabis interacts with the human body quicker compared to ingested cannabis, many patients prefer it for one reason or another.
Suffering patients should be able to consume cannabis in any manner that helps them, including inhaling it. A recent study from the United Kingdom found that inhaled cannabis may help treat pain and anxiety. Below is more information about it via a news release from NORML:
London, United Kingdom: The sustained vaporization of THC-dominant cannabis flowers improves health-related quality of life measurements in patients suffering from chronic pain and anxiety-related disorders, according to observational data published in the journal Biomedicines.
A team of British and Spanish investigators assessed cannabis’ efficacy in a cohort of 451 British patients authorized to consume cannabis flowers for treatment-resistant pain and/or anxiety. Patients in the study were all enrolled with Project Twenty21, “the first U.K. multi-center registry seeking to develop a body of real-world evidence to inform on the effectiveness and safety of medical cannabis.” All of the study’s participants had failed to respond to at least two prescription treatment options prior to obtaining an authorization for medical cannabis. All participants vaporized cannabis flowers for a period of at least three months.
Researchers reported that cannabis inhalation was associated with sustained (6+ months) improvements in both patient populations and that side effects were “minimal.” Investigators reported more significant improvements among those diagnosed with treatment-resistant anxiety.
“Our results indicate that controlled inhalation of pharmaceutical grade, THC-predominant cannabis flos [flowers] is associated with a significant improvement in patient-reported pain scores, mood, anxiety, sleep disturbances and overall HRQoL [health-related quality of life] in a treatment-resistant clinical population,” authors concluded.
Numerous surveys indicate that patients most frequently self-report using cannabis to mitigate symptoms of pain and anxiety.
Full text of the study, “Controlled inhalation of THC-predominant cannabis flos (flowers for inhalation) improves health-related quality of life and symptoms of pain and anxiety in eligible UK patients,” appears in Biomedicines.