Articles

• medical marijuana,
• medical cannabis,
• Australia,

A large study of people suffering from chronic problems such as back pain, migraine and arthritis has discovered many are turning to cannabis to relieve their symptoms, despite already being prescribed heavy-duty opioid medications such as morphine and oxycodone.

In a finding that is likely to further intensify the debate about medical marijuana use, the National Drug and Alcohol Centre researchers found people who used the illegal drug said it was more helpful than the highly addictive and potentially dangerous opioid medications.

Millions of Australians suffer from chronic pain - a problem set to increase as the population ages. Yet there are few effective and safe long-term treatments, and accidental overdose deaths from prescribed pain drugs are now more common than deaths from heroin.

Study leader Louisa Degenhardt found nearly 13 per cent of 1500 chronic pain patients, who were mainly aged in their late 40s  and early 50s, had used cannabis in the past year despite being prescribed opioids. This compared to only 4.7 per cent of the rest of the population, she wrote in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

"One in three said they found it very effective to relieve their pain, that's a score of ten out of ten," she said. "Now these are all subjective scores … but it means there is definitely a group of people who think that taking it was very beneficial."

Professor Degenhardt, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre and the University of Melbourne, said the study raised important questions about whether the benefits of cannabis for pain should be more seriously explored, but also about the negative effects of drugs, such as patient dependence.  

"The people who were also trying cannabis for pain, they were younger but they had also been living with pain for longer," she said. "Their pain was so severe it had been interfering with their lives."

read more at : http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/medicinal-cannabis-study-finds-australians-suffering-chronic-pain-get-more-relief-from-cannabis-than-conventional-medicines-20150126-12y52e.html

he study found nearly 13 per cent of 1500 chronic pain patients had used cannabis in the past year despite being prescribed opioids. Photo: Rob Homer

Australians suffering from chronic pain may get more relief from their symptoms using cannabis than they do from some conventional medications, researchers have found.

A large study of people suffering from chronic problems such as back pain, migraine and arthritis has discovered many are turning to cannabis to relieve their symptoms, despite already being prescribed heavy-duty opioid medications such as morphine and oxycodone.

In a finding that is likely to further intensify the debate about medical marijuana use, the National Drug and Alcohol Centre researchers found people who used the illegal drug said it was more helpful than the highly addictive and potentially dangerous opioid medications.

Millions of Australians suffer from chronic pain - a problem set to increase as the population ages. Yet there are few effective and safe long-term treatments, and accidental overdose deaths from prescribed pain drugs are now more common than deaths from heroin.

Study leader Louisa Degenhardt found nearly 13 per cent of 1500 chronic pain patients, who were mainly aged in their late 40s  and early 50s, had used cannabis in the past year despite being prescribed opioids. This compared to only 4.7 per cent of the rest of the population, she wrote in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

"One in three said they found it very effective to relieve their pain, that's a score of ten out of ten," she said. "Now these are all subjective scores … but it means there is definitely a group of people who think that taking it was very beneficial."

Professor Degenhardt, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre and the University of Melbourne, said the study raised important questions about whether the benefits of cannabis for pain should be more seriously explored, but also about the negative effects of drugs, such as patient dependence.  

"The people who were also trying cannabis for pain, they were younger but they had also been living with pain for longer," she said. "Their pain was so severe it had been interfering with their lives."

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said the NDARC paper provided more evidence that both the Liberal and Labor parties were being too cautious.

"It is irrational and cruel to criminalise patients who are obtaining relief from chronic non-cancer pain using medicinal cannabis," he said.

"Waiting for yet more evidence before changing the law is a delaying tactic that will see tens of thousands of people suffer debilitating levels of pain needlessly."

reference: Fairfax media