Marijuana has therapeutic advantages for adults with disabilities and is often utilized to handle ache and different signs, a brand new government-funded examine reveals.
“Hashish use is prevalent throughout incapacity domains and nearly all of respondents notice they use hashish to assist with ache and to chill out or relieve pressure,” the researchers wrote.
A couple of in 5 folks surveyed mentioned they at present use hashish—and essentially the most generally reported motive was reduction of ache, at over 70 p.c. Greater than 60 p.c mentioned marijuana helps to chill out or relieve pressure.
“Particular medical causes for utilizing hashish included help with health-related situations resembling migraines, nausea, muscle spasms, seizures, psychological well being issues, and sleep disturbances,” the researchers wrote.
The information and outcomes have been derived from the Nationwide Survey on Well being and Incapacity, an annual measure of almost 2,000 individuals who self-identify as residing with a incapacity.
The authors, affiliated with George Mason College and the College of Nevada, famous the methodology took into consideration contributors’ self-reported limitations, together with disabilities associated to cognition, listening to, unbiased residing, mobility, self-care and imaginative and prescient. The examine was printed within the November 2025 concern of the Incapacity and Well being Journal.
The researchers issued a notice of warning concerning the examine’s potential limitations, emphasizing that information have been self-reported.
“The hashish use motive query doesn’t ask particularly why respondents are at present utilizing hashish, and due to this fact respondents could have endorsed causes for hashish use previously,” they wrote, including that “the pattern isn’t a consultant pattern and is majority white, feminine, college-educated, and prosperous; due to this fact, the generalizability of those outcomes to different demographics is unknown.”
The examine was funded by a grant from the Nationwide Institute on Incapacity, Unbiased Residing, and Rehabilitation Analysis, an company inside the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
“We discovered that roughly one fifth of adults with disabilities had reported utilizing hashish at present.”
Past hashish’s direct impact in easing the signs of individuals with disabilities, legalization helps in different methods. In recent times, for instance, Colorado officers have prioritized funding applications for disabled communities with income generated by hashish gross sales—most not too long ago with an public sale for marijuana-themed license plates.