Research, detailed in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research in 2017, determined that 34 per cent of the 2,897 MC patients were using an opioid-based pain medication in the past six months. They “overwhelmingly reported that cannabis provided relief on par with their other medications, but without the unwanted side-effects,” the study states. This group of patients was also more likely to have an active prescription for a benzodiazepine. Although findings “indicated the likelihood of reducing opioid dosage when used in combination with MC, we cannot make a causal inference. Another university study three years later showed that 44 per cent of medical cannabis users polled stopped taking a pharmaceutical drug, or used less of one, or both, in favour of cannabis.
U.S. researchers wanted to find out if cancer patients who consume cannabis, sometimes touted as at least a partial alternative to prescription medications, used fewer opiates and benzodiazepines, but found out that is not the case.
“Use of prescription opiates and prescription benzodiazepines is more prominent in patients who endorse cannabis use,” note the study of findings in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics.
“Our data, therefore,...
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