Cannabis Looks Safe For Pain

Cannabis, yes, marijuana, has been found to be a “reasonably safe” choice for pain relief by researchers at McGill University. In what is called the largest study of the long-term use of marijuana for pain relief, researchers found that patients with chronic pain who used cannabis daily for one year, when carefully monitored, did not have an increase in serious adverse events compared to pain patients who did not use cannabis. A McGill news release reports that the researchers followed 215 adult patients, with chronic non-cancer pain, who used medical cannabis (herbal cannabis containing 12.5 per cent THC from a licensed cannabis producer), and compared them to a control group of 216 chronic pain sufferers who were not cannabis users. Ready? The envelope please…“Our data show that daily cannabis users had no greater risk than non-users (control group) to experience serious adverse events,’’ says Dr. Aline Boulanger, director of the pain clinic at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. ‘’We found no evidence of harmful effects on cognitive function, or blood tests among cannabis consumers and we observed a significant improvement in their levels of pain, symptom distress, mood and quality of life compared to controls. ’’