In a recent study, published in Pharmacy journal, it was found that chronically ill patients who had used marijuana regularly for at least a year showed “significantly reduced healthcare utilization”, compared to those not using the drug. Patients reported fewer emergency department visits and urgent care as well as enhancing their quality of living.
The report also found that hospitalization rates for chronic pain sufferers who use medical marijuana were lower, although not statistically significant.
“Exposure [to cannabis] The report was written by researchers from the Miami-based cannabis telehealth provider Leafwell in Virginia and George Mason University.
The authors concluded that the findings “suggest, in line [with] existing research that medical marijuana is an effective treatment option” for chronic pain patients. This study highlights the potential of not only [quality of life] The use of medical marijuana has not only positive benefits for the patient, but can also have positive impacts on healthcare systems.”
The use of medical cannabis was associated with a reduction in healthcare usage and an improvement in self-reported health. [quality of life] Chronic pain is common among patients.”
Leafwell is a company that certifies medical marijuana in 36 States.
The study states that “the cannabis-exposed groups included individuals who used medical marijuana within the previous year and sought recertification for their medical cards through Leafwell. While the unexposed group consisted of first-time Leafwell Patients who reported no cannabis usage in the last year.”
The team examined 5,242 chronic-pain patients. Of these, 3,943 had used cannabis in the past year, and 1,299 did not.
Mitchell Doucette, lead author on the study, told MEDCAN24 that “we compared a vast set of real world data where we compared people who have never used marijuana with medical cannabis users.” We found, when we compared the two groups, that those who used medical cannabis for a minimum of one year experienced lower emergency room and urgent care visit rates, as well as a higher quality of living.
Doucette said that when we add up these results, which he has obtained a doctorate from Johns Hopkins in health policy and health care, he is now the senior director of research at Leafwell. “It suggests medical cannabis not only leads to improved quality-of-life for patients with chronic pain, but it could also lead to potentially better outcomes for their health.”
He explained that while some studies had looked at changes in quality-of life for patients who used medical marijuana, others focused on healthcare outcomes. This is, however, the first time a study has connected these two dots.
This allows the researchers to better answer questions like, “Is this increased quality of living translating into less visits to doctors, urgent care, or the emergency department?”
Doucette concluded that, in general, medical marijuana is a beneficial medicinal product that can help certain individuals. The healthcare system should also “try to reduce the cost and access for people who find it difficult to afford.”
Leafwell regularly supports research on medical marijuana. A number of recent studies have been published.
Earlier this year, for example, a separate study by Doucette and others looked at cannabis as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), finding that medical marijuana—especially non-flower formulations—”represent a cost-effective adjunctive therapy for moderate PTSD under various reimbursement scenarios.”
It was concluded that, given the assumptions made about medical marijuana’s efficacy for PTSD and its cost, it might be worth for insurance companies and healthcare payers to cover marijuana along with other forms of standard treatment.
“For the vast majority of types of products, there is pretty solid evidence that medical cannabis is cost-effective,” Doucette told MEDCAN24 at the time, “meaning that…adding these items to [patients’] drug formulary would be advantageous for not only the patient—because of the lowering of the cost—but also advantageous for health insurance.”
This study was published in Clinical Drug Investigation. It stated that products like edibles, tablets, and oral solutions “consistently showed cost-effectiveness”, using a standard model for insurers’ willingness.
Leafwell’s study published in the fall of last year concluded that medical marijuana legalization at state level appears to reduce health insurance rates. In states with legal medical cannabis, companies paid 3.4 percent less for health insurance premiums compared to where marijuana remained illegal—a savings of about $238 per employee per year.
This study estimated that the US could save approximately $29 Billion in annual health insurance costs by implementing medical marijuana programs across all 50 states.
In December, meanwhile, Leafwell authors had a scientific review in the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids indicating that high-CBD, low-THC cannabis products have the potential to “significantly improve the quality of life” for children with autism and epilepsy. It said the cannabis products also showed “promising results in reducing key symptoms” of other conditions experienced by young people, including cancer—all with mostly “mild, manageable side effects.”
Other research, from authors at DePaul University in Chicago, used Leafwell data to examine what conditions qualify minors for state-legal medical cannabis programs, concluding that younger people enroll in the programs for many of the same reasons that older adults do, including anxiety, PTSD and chronic pain. Also common were insomnia and depression.
Among minor patients—those under 18—cancer and epilepsy were more common reasons for obtaining a medical marijuana recommendation than they were among young adults, ages 18 to 20. The older patients were more likely than the younger ones to list depression, chronic pain, or insomnia as primary conditions.
Leafwell’s research has focused on specific conditions such as PTSD, chronic pain and sleep apnea. Doucette, however, said that his future research will be “a bit broader”, looking at conditions related to sleep, including insomnia and sleep apnea.
In terms of cannabis and chronic pain, however, an earlier study found that over 8 out 10 patients using medical marijuana considered it a helpful tool to manage pain.
The report was published in Cureus in May. It is based on a survey conducted between October 20, 2022, and December 20, 2024 of 129 medical marijuana patients from Pennsylvania. The report stated that it provides “important insights into real-world patterns and perceptions of efficacy as well as cognitive effects associated with medical cannabis usage among chronic musculoskeletal patients who use cannabis frequently over an extended period.”
In a release issued at the time, Mohammad Khak (co-author and researcher with the Rothman Opioid Foundation) said that “over 80 percent” of the patients who used medical marijuana found it to be effective in managing their pain.
Past research has suggested that a variety of cannabinoids—including CBD and others—may help ease pain symptoms. A study published in February, for example, found that marijuana and its cannabinoid components may be useful treatments for various types of chronic pain, in some cases helping to reduce the use of other medications
The paper also said select mixtures of cannabinoids—such as cannabichromene (CBC) and cannabigerol (CBG)—could have other benefits, including minimizing undesirable effects like the psychoactivity of THC.
The report stated that more than 180 cannabinoids were isolated from cannabis plants, and they interact with various parts of the human body. CBD and THC have a “wide range of therapeutic potential based on the multiple molecular target including receptors, transporters, and enzymes.”
The authors concluded that “the two most studied and abundant cannabinoids THC and CBD along with a cannabinoid understudied, Cannabigerol, have shown in our labs to reduce neuropathic in animal models.” They recommended further research “into the cannabinoids such as THC, CBD and CBG, should focus on optimal therapeutic dosages and effects of these cannabinoids on the management chronic neuropathic in humans.”
Separate research published earlier this year in the journal Pain found that marijuana was “comparatively more effective than prescription medications” for treating chronic pain after a three-month period, and that many patients reduced their use of opioid painkillers while using cannabis.
According to the authors of the National Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School report, “the analysis was able to determine using causal inference methods that the use of medical cannabis for chronic pain is at least equally effective, and could be more effective, in comparison to chronic pain patients treated with prescription medication (nonopioid and opioid).”
A recent federally funded study, meanwhile, found that legalization of marijuana in U.S. states is associated with reduced prescriptions for opioid pain medications among commercially insured adults—indicating a possible substitution effect where patients are choosing to use cannabis instead of prescription drugs to treat pain.
Authors of the report noted, “It appears that there is a minor shift as soon as recreational marijuana becomes legal. However, we notice stronger results when users can buy cannabis in recreational dispensaries.”
This paper in Cannabis continues: “Reductions of opioid prescription fills resulting from the legalization of recreational cannabis may prevent the exposure of patients suffering pain to opioids, leading to decreased rates of opioid addiction and harms related to it.”
Recent research has also shown a drop in the number of fatal opioid overdoses 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. According to the authors, recreational marijuana legalization is “associated with an approximate 3.5 death reduction per 100,000 persons.”
The report concluded that, “Our results suggest that expanding recreational marijuana use could be a way to combat the opioid crisis.” The report stated that “previous research shows marijuana can be used to reduce prescriptions for opioids and may reduce overdose deaths.”
The effect of earlier implementation is greater. [recreational marijuana legalization]This relationship appears to be relatively stable over the years,” said it.
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. The study concluded that cannabis has an important role in the management of pain and reduction of opioid usage.
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 this 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.
Recent research has also shown that cannabis can be used as an alternative to opioids for pain relief.
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.
In Minnesota, meanwhile, a state government report this year on chronic pain patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program said recently that participants “are finding a noticeable change in pain relief” within a few months of starting cannabis treatment.
In a large-scale, nearly 10,000 patient study, nearly one quarter of patients who previously took painkillers reduced their usage after using medical cannabis.
Another new study on the use of medical marijuana by older patients—age 50 and above—concluded that “cannabis seemed to be a safe and effective treatment” for pain and other conditions.
A separate presentation reviewing research on student athletes’ use of cannabis recently found that marijuana “has demonstrated positive findings as an alternative for pain management among NCAA athletes.”
Yet another study found that 40 percent of military veterans suffering from chronic pain reported using marijuana to treat their symptoms.
Veterans also reported that cannabis helped them with anxiety, PTSD and stress. Nearly everyone (98%) said that health care providers should be discussing the use of natural remedies with patients.