Pubdate: Mon, 30 Aug 2010
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Sharon Kirkey, Postmedia News
Note: Download the study at http://mapinc.org/url/t4KIh82X
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

POT CAN LOWER CHRONIC PAIN EVEN WITHOUT THE HIGH

Cannabis found to relieve neuropathic pain in patients who had failed
conventional treatments

Briefly inhaling cannabis three times a day eases a kind of chronic
pain that affects tens of thousands of Canadians -- without making
them high -- Montreal researchers are reporting.

The new study, the first clinical trial in the world to allow patients
to take marijuana home with them and "self-dose," found that for
people with neuropathic pain -- a common and dreaded condition that
causes electric, stabbing pain -- smoking cannabis reduced pain,
improved mood and helped them sleep.

Three potencies (2.5 per cent, six per cent and 9.4 per cent) of THC,
the active ingredient in marijuana, were tested against a placebo or
"dummy" pot in 21 patients with neuropathic pain, none of whom had
responded to standard treatments.

Participants inhaled a single dose through a pipe three times daily
for five days, followed by a nine-day "washout" period. They were
instructed to inhale for five seconds while the cannabis was lit, hold
the smoke in their lungs for 10 seconds, and then exhale.

Pain was measured on an 11-point scale ranging from "no pain" to
"worst pain possible."

Patients reported less pain, better sleep and less anxiety when they
were smoking the highest concentration of THC, compared with the placebo.

It wasn't a massive reduction in pain: The average daily pain
intensity was 5.4 with 9.4 per cent THC, versus 6.1 with the placebo.

"But the patients that we were recruiting had to be patients that had
tried and failed all other conventional treatments," said lead author
Dr. Mark Ware, director of clinical research at the Alan Edwards Pain
Management Unit at the McGill University Health Centre.

Neuropathic pain -- which is caused by damage to nerves -- affects as
much as two per cent of the population. The Montreal study involved
patients with post-trauma or postsurgical pain -- radiating pain from
prolapsed discs, for example, or burning pain from an incision.

"All of these were very refractory, very difficult pain problems to
resolve. Any improvement in pain was quite remarkable," Ware said.

As many as 15 per cent of patients with chronic non-cancer pain and
multiple sclerosis report using marijuana. "There clearly was an unmet
need," he said. "We're not going to argue that smoked cannabis is the
be-all and end-all of pain management," Ware said. "It simply opens
the door to the fact that cannabinoids may be an additional tool in
the physician's toolbox." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake