According to a recent study published by the American Medical Association, approximately one-third of people with chronic pain use weed as a treatment option, with the majority of that group using it to replace other pain drugs, including opioids. The new study, published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association Substance Use and Addiction,” adds to the plethora of previous works affirming that cannabis can be used to treat pain effectively and as an alternative to some pharmaceuticals.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan conducted the study, using information from 1,724 adults of ages 18 and older from 36 states. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
According to the authors, more than 50% of adults who used marijuana to manage their chronic pain reported that doing so resulted in them using fewer over-the-counter, prescription nonopioid and opioid painkillers, and less than 1% reported that doing so resulted in them using more of these drugs. Additionally, the researchers noted that the high level of cannabis use as an alternative to opioid treatment highlighted the need for further studies to determine the efficacy and possible negative effects of cannabis.
Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, responded to the research in a blog stating that marijuana has shown to be effective in treating a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, and that its safety profile is comparable to or better than that of other regulated substances. “It is therefore not surprising that patients with legal access to cannabis are substituting it in place of other, perhaps more harmful and less effective substances,” he stated. Furthermore, the deputy director stated that the weed substitution effect will become more apparent in the future as legal access expands.
Several other studies have been conducted on this subject in the past, most recently by the American Medical Association (AMA), which found that the legalization of medical cannabis in some states is linked to a sharp decline in the prescribing and use of opioid painkillers among some cancer patients.
Similar results were found in a September study that showed providing patients with legal access to medical marijuana could help them cut back or stop using opioid painkillers without affecting their health. A different study published the same month revealed that the pharmaceutical industry suffers significantly in terms of revenue after states legalize cannabis. The study showed that the industry has lost more than $10 billion in revenue per legalization event.
In total, more than 4,300 studies on marijuana and its constituent parts were published in 2022, according to a NORML analysis.
This growing proof that cannabis is helping numerous patients to manage their health conditions suggests that entities such as India Globalization Capital Inc. (NYSE American: IGC) that are focused on developing therapeutic formulations using cannabinoids, including THC, could be onto something that may transform how various conditions are treated going forward.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to India Globalization Capital Inc. (NYSE American: IGC) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://cnw.fm/IGC
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