Medical marijuana patients with chronic pain overwhelmingly agree the cannabis is an effective, long-term treatment option—with one in three saying it has helped them to eliminate the use of prescription drugs—according to a new poll.
Green Health Docs surveyed 1,450 medical marijuana patients across the country and interviewed them on a range of topics, including how cannabis affects their chronic pain.
Eighty-six percent of those surveyed said marijuana reduced pain in a “moderate” way, while 56 percent reported significant pain reduction.
Nearly half of respondents—48 percent—said they were using prescription pain medications before trying marijuana. Following cannabis use, 35% stopped taking all pain medication, 15% stopped some, and 13% reduced the dosage or frequency. Less than 1 in 5 (18%) reported that their prescription pain medications consumption did not change after they began using medical cannabis.
The polling report by Green Health Docs states that “Many respondents highlighted the lower overdose risk compared to opioids as well as a manageable side effect profile and flexibility in different product formats.” The polling report from Green Health Docs says that “these factors explain why so few choose cannabis for a long-term safer strategy.”
Almost a fourth of patients in the survey (73 percent) said they rely on use of marijuana to relieve pain on a daily basis, and most also said they believe cannabis to be a viable long-term solution for managing chronic pain—with just over one percent saying they disagree with that notion.
Anand Dugar from Green Health Docs stated that “respondents often described second benefits, such a better sleep, improved mobility, or reduced anxiety.” The cumulative effect of these improvements is a significant difference to the way we live our lives.
The latest evidence suggests that cannabis can be used as a substitute for opioids to treat pain.
In August this year, another study in Pain Management published that co-prescriptions of cannabinoids “may enable patients to decrease their opioid intake prescribed for chronic pain.”
Earlier this year, a different study in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that, among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.
A study published late last year also found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.
Recent research has also shown a drop in the number of fatal overdoses from opioids among jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. The authors estimated that legalizing recreational marijuana “is associated” with a reduction of approximately 3.5 fatalities per 100,000 people.
This report stated that “our findings suggest that broader access to recreational marijuana could help combat the opioid epidemic.” The report stated that “previous research shows marijuana can be used to reduce prescriptions for opioids and may reduce overdoses.”
Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. It concluded that the results showed “cannabis plays a significant role in pain management, and the reduction of opioid consumption.”
Yet another study, published in 2023, linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids and other prescription medications. And another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) last February, found that chronic pain patients who received medical marijuana for longer than a month saw significant reductions in prescribed opioids.
About one in three chronic pain patients reported using cannabis as a treatment option, according to a 2023 AMA-published report. The majority of those in that group reported using cannabis to replace other pain medication, such as opioids.
Other research published that year found that letting people buy CBD legally significantly reduced opioid prescription rates, leading to 6.6 percent to 8.1 percent fewer opioid prescriptions.
A 2022 research paper that analyzed Medicaid data on prescription drugs, meanwhile, found that legalizing marijuana for adult use was associated with “significant reductions” in the use of prescription drugs for the treatment of multiple conditions.
A 2023 report linked state-level medical marijuana legalization to reduced opioid payouts to doctors—another datapoint suggesting that patients use cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs when given legal access.
Researchers in another study, published last year, looked at opioid prescription and mortality rates in Oregon, finding that nearby access to retail marijuana moderately reduced opioid prescriptions, though they observed no corresponding drop in opioid-related deaths.
Cannabis may also be an effective alternative for opioids to manage pain, according to other recent studies.
A report published recently in the journal BMJ Open, for instance, compared medical marijuana and opioids for chronic non-cancer pain and found that cannabis “may be similarly effective and result in fewer discontinuations than opioids,” potentially offering comparable relief with a lower likelihood of adverse effects.
Separate research published found that more than half (57 percent) of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain said cannabis was more effective than other analgesic medications, while 40 percent reported reducing their use of other painkillers since they began using marijuana.