Can Puffing Pot Ease Your Pain?

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Smoking moderate amounts of medical cannabis may ease the pain experienced by patients with HIV/AIDS, diabetes and shingles.

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego, studied the pain-relieving effects of cannabis on 15 healthy patients. Doses of the herb were given in varying degrees of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Pain was induced with capsaicin, derived from hot chili peppers that is an irritant to the skin, to mimic the type of neuropathic pain experienced by patients with HIV/AIDS, diabetes or shingles -- brief, intense pain following by a longer-lasting secondary pain.

“Subjects reported a decrease in pain at the medium dose, and there was also a significant correlation between plasma levels of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, and decreased pain,” Igor Grant, M.D., director of the Center for Medical Cannabis Research, was quoted as saying. “Interestingly, the analgesic effect wasn’t immediate; it took about 45 minutes for the cannabis to have an impact on the pain,” he said.

Researchers say they were also surprised to find not only did high-doses of cannabis not relieve pain, they actually increased the pain response.

“This study helps to build a case that cannabis does have therapeutic value at a medium-dose level,” Dr. Grant said. “It also suggests that higher doses aren’t necessarily better in certain situations -- something also observed with other medications, such as antidepressants.”

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SOURCE: Anesthesiology, Nov., 2007