How Does Medical Marijuana Work On Chronic Pain? - My MMJ Doctor

Pain is by far the most common condition for which medicinal cannabis is used. About 50% of all medical cannabis patients use cannabis to alleviate pain.

The medical conditions responsible for pain are quite varied, but there is a remarkable consistency in patient’s responses to cannabis use.

The majority of patients can reduce or eliminate their use of prescription opiates such as Vicodin or OxyContin.

Patients who do well on cannabis often cannot tolerate the side effects of opiates, including constipation and daytime sedation.

When cannabis is used for pain, most patients report that they do not experience significant side effects typical of those experienced by recreational users, such as giddiness, short-term memory loss, or sedation. Recent research on brain physiology suggests that the pain receptors are more receptive to stimuli when one is in pain.

At the same time, the pleasure and addiction centers are relatively resistant to stimulation. This is why the vast majority of patients using opiates for pain do not become addicted to it.

Cannabis can provideeffective pain relief for many different illnesses, injuries, and medical conditions.

For centuries how cannabis produced its many therapeutic effects was a mystery. How could a single substance derived from a plant have so many effects on different parts of the mind and body?

The chemistry of medical cannabis has been known for some time. The active ingredients are cannabinoids. Sixty-six different variations have been isolated.

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the most abundant. Delta 9 THC is the most psychoactive.

In 1988 the cannabinoid receptors were discovered in both the brain (CB-1) and the lymphatic system (CB-2). The lymphatic system is involved in producing antibodies that are critical in both fighting diseases and controlling the immune response.

The widespread distribution of CB receptors in both the brain and lymphatic tissue helped explain the many effects of cannabis.

This human brain would become receptors for a plant can be answered by the fact that many plants produce chemicals similar to those produced by our bodies.

The body’s endorphins help modulate pain by stimulating receptors in the brain. As it turns out, opiates derived from poppies have structures similar to that of our endorphins and produce the same (opiate) receptors.

Our bodies, as it turns out, produce cannabinoids. This endocannabinoid system was discovered in 1992 when anandamide was isolated. Although this substance is hard to study because it metabolizes so rapidly, it does appear to stimulate both CB1 and CB2 receptors with effects similar to cannabis.

Several other endocannabinoids have been isolated and are under study.

What is clear is that the endocannabinoid system is vital to a wide range of neurological and possibly immune functions that cannabis can mimic and enhance.

More research is needed. For an excellent review of the famous state of medical cannabis research, refer to “Marijuana and Medicine, Assessing the Scientific Basis, published by the Institute of Medicine.