The average cannabis user living in states where marijuana is legal has the luxury of stepping inside his or her friendly neighborhood dispensary for access to a variety of pot products, like edible candies, pills, topicals, concentrates and even beverages. These processed variations of the cannabis plant are designed for those consumers who don\u2019t necessarily want to smoke to achieve the desired effect. But when it comes to which method of consumption is best for patients suffering from chronic pain, a new study suggests that loading a bowl full of flower is still the most effective path to getting back to good.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of New Mexico determined that people trying to manage pain through the use of cannabis are simply better off smoking bud than relying on other forms of the herb.\u00a0The findings<\/a>, which were published in the journal\u00a0Complementary Therapies in Medicine, indicate that \u201cwhole cannabis flower was associated with greater pain relief than were other types of products.\u201d The researchers go on to say that \u201chigher tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels were the strongest predictors of analgesia and side effects prevalence across the five pain categories.\u201d<\/p>\n These results are especially interesting considering that cannabidiol (CBD), the non-intoxicating compound of the cannabis plant, is now being praised as a rockstar at taming pain. Even the folks pushing the hemp-derived version of this medicine, which is much weaker than the oils made from marijuana, swear that this sometimes\u00a0truck stop novelty<\/a>\u00a0is the key to living pain-free. However, researchers beg to differ. They have concluded that the presence of THC, which produces the stoned effects we all know and love, is also essential if the user expects any discernible pain-relief results.<\/p>\n \u201cCannabis flower with moderate to high levels of (THC) is an effective mid-level analgesic,\u201d the study reads.<\/p>\n But it just isn\u2019t the existence of THC that makes smoking marijuana the best approach to pain management.<\/p>\n We have swelled into a society convinced that dissecting cannabis and separating its components into good and evil is the right approach to the plant. This is perhaps the reason that CBD has risen to such stardom in the past five years. The problem with this attitude is that it completely disregards the 100 or so other cannabinoids that the cannabis plant has to offer. It also discounts essential terpenes and flavonoids and thereby eliminates any possibility that the patient will benefit from the plant\u2019s synergistic properties. Science established long ago that the\u00a0entourage effect<\/a>\u00a0associated with whole-plant cannabis is what truly provides the therapeutic effects. So, all of you military service members\u00a0prohibited<\/a>\u00a0from using CBD products, don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re definitely not missing much.<\/p>\n But what about kids suffering from epilepsy? Dr. Sanjay Gupta told us years ago that they needed the CBD compound to stop seizures. Sure, while some sick children might have had some luck controlling this affliction through the use of CBD alone, a\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0published around this time last year found the compound was more effective at helping them stay seizure-free if it was complemented with just a hint of THC. Researchers found that the closer they got to allowing the two cannabinoids to work together, the better the results. \u201cWe saw a statistically significant reduction in motor seizures, and an increase in seizure-free days,\u201d the study authors said.<\/p>\n Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a CBD-based drug last year called\u00a0Epidiolex<\/a>\u00a0to be prescribed to young patients suffering from two rare forms of epilepsy, not even it is expected to be a miracle cure. The drug, which contains absolutely no THC, is only effective in around 32% of patients,\u00a0according to the FDA<\/a>. Parents with epileptic kids have long complained that\u00a0CBD alone just doesn\u2019t do the trick<\/a> and that the efficacy of this compound has been hyped beyond belief.<\/p>\n The latest study out of New Mexico, however, provides some guidance for an America looking for answers as to whether marijuana can relieve pain or not.<\/p>\n A separate\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0published earlier this week from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) shows that 75% of the U.S. population, most of them millennials, has a genuine interest in learning more about how pot can combat pain conditions. These folks, presumably those fed up with all of the anecdotal reports and the conflicting studies that emerge every other week, want to see the federal government finally roll up their sleeves on the cannabis issue and deliver real results.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, it seems that medical marijuana users are going to have to get high before they experience any noticeable pain relief. And that complicates things for a vast majority of the U.S. population \u2014 especially those in the workforce. Unlike over-the-counter pain remedies like acetaminophen and ibuprofen, which eliminate some of the hurt without a buzz, smoking marijuana to combat minor aches could lead to\u00a0impairment issues on the job<\/a>. Just like most companies don\u2019t allow workers to drink booze on the clock, medical marijuana is not likely to be any different, even after federal legalization finally takes hold in the new few years. So, don\u2019t sell your stock in Tylenol just yet.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you smoke marijuana?<\/p>\n The post Smoking A Bowl of High-THC Flower Might Be Best For Combatting Pain<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The average cannabis user living in states where marijuana is legal has the luxury of stepping inside his or her friendly neighborhood dispensary for access to a variety of pot products, like edible candies, pills, topicals, concentrates and even beverages. These processed variations of the cannabis plant are designed forContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[605,50,1594,4350,11840,3857,53,2062,5564,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37841,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37840\/revisions\/37841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Smoking A Bowl of High-THC Flower Might Be Best For Combatting Pain<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"