According to a new research study, medical marijuana is “comparatively more efficient than prescription medication” in treating chronic pain. Many patients also reduced the amount of opioid painkillers they were taking while using cannabis.
This study was conducted by federal researchers at the National Cancer Institute and supported by Pennsylvania’s Academic Clinical Research Program for Medical Marijuana. It was published in Pain late last month.
According to the report, despite certain limitations in terms of methodology, “the analysis was able to determine using causal inference methods that medical marijuana use for chronic pain is at least equally effective, and possibly more effective, in relation to chronic pain patients treated with prescription medication (nonopiod or opioid).
This study was conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School (University of Pittsburgh), NCI and the University of Pittsburgh. It compared data collected from electronic medical records of 440 patients who used medical marijuana with 8,114 other people treated conventionally.
The demographics between the two groups were different. Medical marijuana patients had a greater percentage of Black patients, patients who reported using drugs, and those with medical conditions. They also used less tobacco. Medical marijuana patients also had different diagnoses and levels of pain. They were diagnosed with a lesser percentage of spinal problems, but more fibromyalgia and neuropathic conditions, as well as headaches and arthritic diseases.
Authors said that despite these differences their analysis enabled them to “make rigorous comparisons” with a group of control patients receiving prescription drugs.
In their report, they state that, “Using a causal-inference approach,” the researchers found medical marijuana more effective for treating chronic pain than prescribed medication. They also noted the higher odds of positive responses in the group using medical marijuana, as well as the doubled predicted probabilities of such responses. While we did find that medical cannabis was more effective than prescription medication, it is not possible to extrapolate that this would be true for other populations. This is because the two populations we studied were different, but similar.
The article continues by saying that “a more conservative interpretation” of the results is that medical marijuana was The same or better than effective “Prescription medications to treat chronic pain”.
In particular, medical marijuana users had 39 percent more “meaningful response to treatment” after three months than those taking traditional medication. The authors noted that “the rates are consistent with the results of many RCTs (randomized controlled trials) on medicinal cannabis as a pain reliever.”
According to the report, “the positive response was maintained at six months, demonstrating its longevity.”
Among the 157 medical marijuana patients who also had been prescribed opioids, authors observed a 39 percent reduction in prescribed morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs)—a standard measure of opioid dosage—over six months of treatment. The authors wrote that “this is significant in that lower MMEs are associated with an enhanced safety profile.” They added that their findings appeared to contradict previous studies that found marijuana had no effect on opioid usage.
While we can’t conclude that cannabis medicinal is an opioid-sparing drug, the study continued, “our findings do indicate possible use of it as a adjunct to try to wean successfully from opioids.”
The research team acknowledged some limitations to the study, including that the types of cannabis products and dosage amounts—including THC and CBD levels, for example—were unknown, “which precludes the determination of any dose–response relationship to medical marijuana outcomes.” The authors were unable to identify “potentially differential therapeutic effects” of different medications, such as opioids and nonopioids.
In the paper, it is stated that “we were unable track the potential harmful effects of medical marijuana. For example, the development cannabis use disorders, which have been reported in systematic reviews.” However, it does not discuss the possibility of tracking opioid use disorder within the control group.
Separate reports have also indicated that marijuana can be a potent pain reliever.
A recent federally funded study, for example, shows 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, “There appears to be only a minor shift as soon as recreational marijuana becomes legal. However, we notice stronger results when users can buy cannabis in recreational dispensaries.”
The paper published in Cannabis explains that “reductions in prescriptions for opioids due to recreational marijuana legalization could prevent opioid exposure in pain patients, as well as lead to a decrease in new opioid users and rates of addiction disorder.”
Another recent study also found a decrease in opioid fatal overdoses when marijuana for adults was legalized. 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.” Previous research has shown that marijuana, primarily used for medical purposes, can help reduce the number of opioid prescriptions. We also found it could reduce overdose death rates.
The effect of earlier implementation is greater. [recreational marijuana legalization]It added that this relationship has been relatively constant over time.
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 it can reduce 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 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.
Recent research has also shown that cannabis can be 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.
A new report by the Minnesota state government on patients with chronic pain who are enrolled in its medical marijuana program stated that they “are experiencing a significant change in their pain levels” after only a few weeks of cannabis use.
In a large-scale, nearly 10,000 patient study, nearly a quarter of patients who previously took painkillers reduced their usage after using medical cannabis.
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