A large number of patients with back pain are able to stop opioid use after initiation of cannabis use.
"In a retrospective cohort study of 61 patients with low back pain about half were able to stop all opioid usage, which usually took several years. This is the result of a study by the Society of Cannabis Clinicians in Sebastopol, USA. Cannabis recommendations were provided to patients as a way to
mitigate their low back pain.
Authors found “that 50.8% were able to stop all opioid usage, which took a median of 6.4 years (IQR=1.75-11 years) after excluding two patients who transitioned off opioids by utilizing opioid agonists. For those 29 patients (47.5%) who did not stop opioids, 9 (31%) were able to reduce opioid use, 3 (10%) held the same baseline, and 17 (59%) increased their usage.” They noted that there “were no variables that predicted who stopped opioids, except that those who used higher doses of cannabis
were more likely to stop, which suggests that some patients might be able to stop opioids by using cannabis, particularly those who are dosed at higher levels.”
Learn more: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32923663
