Study: Smoking pot may ease chronic pain

(The dark green represents states that allow medicinal marijuana. Light green represents states with marijuana-friendly laws or pending legislation. Alaska and Hawaii (not pictured) allow medicinal marijuana)

People with chronic pain who aren't getting enough relief from medications may be able to ease their pain by smoking small amounts of marijuana, a new study suggests.
Marijuana also helps pain patients fall asleep more easily and sleep more soundly, according to the report, one of the first real-world studies to look at the medicinal use of smoked marijuana. Most previous research has used extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in the cannabis plant.
"This is the first time anyone has done a trial of smoked cannabis on an outpatient basis," says the lead researcher, Mark Ware, M.B.B.S., the director of clinical research at McGill University's Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, in Montreal.
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The study included 21 adults with nervous-system (neuropathic) pain stemming from surgery, accidents, or other trauma. Fourteen of the participants were on short-term disability or permanently disabled. All of them had tried marijuana before, but none were current or habitual smokers.
"They were not experienced marijuana users," Ware says. "They came because they had severe pain that was not responding to any conventional treatment."
Christopher Gharibo, M.D., an anesthesiologist at the New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases, in New York City, points out that the study didn't address whether marijuana enabled the patients to perform everyday activities without pain -- the best test of a chronic pain treatment.
"I'm not convinced [marijuana] helps from a functional standpoint," he says. "I'm not even impressed by the pain reduction. We have analgesics that do much better."
The potential long-term side effects of habitual marijuana use could prove problematic as well, Gharibo adds. Over time some patients may experience weight gain, a generalized feeling of sedation, and even changes in mood and cognitive function, he says.
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