Cannabis 'safe to treat pain' but no proof it helps
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“Smoking cannabis daily ‘is safe when treating chronic pain – but only if you’re an experienced user’, study finds,” says a Mail Online headline.
It refers to a study done in Canada to see how safe medical cannabis is for treating chronic pain.
But the results of the study don’t mean you should take cannabis if you have chronic pain. They don’t show that cannabis helps to reduce pain, and the drug is also illegal in the UK.
In the study, more than 200 people with chronic (non-cancer) pain that had not got better with other treatments were given medical cannabis every day for one year. They were compared with a similar number of people who did not receive cannabis.
The study was designed to look at whether medical cannabis has any side effects – or adverse events – rather than its effect on pain. It found more non-serious adverse events in the cannabis group, but no difference between the two groups for more serious adverse events. It also found lung function test results for those w...
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