A 2018 study in the European Journal of Internal Medicine reports that cannabis use in the elderly, most commonly for pain and cancer, results in significant improvements in their condition after just 6 months.
Almost 3000 participants over 65 years old, who were using medical cannabis either for pain and/or cancer were followed. The results at 6 months compared pain intensity, quality of life and adverse events. 93.7% of the participants reported improvement in their condition, be it pain or cancer. Nearly 20% of participants either stopped using their prescribed opioid painkillers or reduced their dose.
In light of these results, the authors encourage the medical industry to recognise the safety profile of cannabis for the relief of chronic pain arguing that cannabis use could dramatically reduce the growing number of prescription-related deaths due in large part to synthetic opioid painkiller abuse.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in America report that almost 70% of all deaths from drug overdose comes from opioid overdose (2).
Medical cannabis could provide relief of chronic pain without the dangerous dependency that comes with opioid use.
Former Oxford University Biochemist, Chris Woollams added, “Medical conditions for which medical marijuana is recognised as a benefit and is prescribed include multiple sclerosis, reduction of symptoms related to cancer treatments such as cachexia and nausea, and epilepsy. However, in the UK, very few people are likely to be able to access a prescription for medical cannabis according to the NHS(3)”.
Go to: Can Cannabis cure cancer?
References
- https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(18)30019 0/fulltext
- https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html
- https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/medical-cannabis/
