 Cancer can be frightening, and even just the treatments alone can be overwhelmingly difficult to endure.
One of the primary focuses in cancer treatment is pain management, and that’s traditionally done with pharmaceutical painkillers. But while they can help reduce pain, they also can cause negative side effects, and be addictive too. Cannabis advocates, though, have long been sharing the benefits of the plant for pain management, and there are thousands of testimonials from patients about it’s benefits. Israeli researchers have just published a scientific paper proving that cannabis has the potential to provide chronic pain relief to patients undergoing cancer treatment. The paper notes that while medical cannabis can also have side effects, those effects can be categorized as “mild to moderate” and are generally well tolerated. The researchers worked with 404 cancer patients and studied their results with cannabis treatment for six months. Over that time, they found that total cancer symptoms were reduced by an average of 18%, while average weekly pain intensity dropped by about 20%. At the conclusion of the study, 40% of the patients voluntarily chose to stop using pharmaceuticals for pain relief. The research paper’s conclusion was that cannabis does have the potential to provide “mild to modest long-term improvement” in cancer-associated symptoms, including pain. And, the paper states that cannabis for pain management can lead to a reduced use of opioids and other pharmaceutical drugs that often cause unacceptable side effects and addiction. Studies like these are vital, and more are needed. Because at this time, the US Government still stands by classifying Cannabis as a schedule 1 drug, which according to their definition, means it has no currently approved medical use. Comments are closed.
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