Proponents and opponents have been debating the value of medical cannabis since the 1990s. Their debate has taken many forms, with alternating emphasis on efficacy, gateway drug issues, cost, and the impact of legalization on the black market. Here is a novel way to look at it, a way that doesn’t get much press attention: medical cannabis is an alternative therapy.
Viewing medical cannabis as an alternative is by no means meant to soften the blow or make something acceptable to people who have long opposed it. Rather, it’s a practical and pragmatic response to the fact that millions of people now use medical cannabis and swear by it. The vast majority of those people rely on cannabis to manage chronic pain.
A Universal Qualifying Condition
Each state with legal medical cannabis has established its own list of qualifying conditions. These are conditions for which the state believes medical cannabis is an appropriate treatment. Utah has 17 conditions on its list, according to Brigham City’s Beehive Farmacy. Both chronic and acute pain are included.
Beehive Farmacy’s operators say that chronic and acute pain are not limited to Utah and a small number of additional states. They say pain is a nearly universal qualifying condition among states with legalized medical cannabis. They also say that the majority of visitors to their medical cannabis pharmacy are chronic and acute pain patients.
An Alternative to What?
Focusing exclusively on pain, I am forced to wonder about the other treatments doctors offer. In other words, what is medical cannabis and alternative to? I actually know the answer. Several of my family members are chronic pain patients. I know all too well how their doctors try to treat them.
Here are the most common recommendations for chronic pain:
- OTC pain medications
- Prescription NSAIDs
- Prescription pain pills
- Physical therapy and surgery
There is no denying that these traditional treatments do work for some patients. But they do not work for every patient. They certainly do not work for two of my family members. So what’s next for people like them?
Many of them turn to alternatives. I have known chronic pain patients who have sought out chiropractic and acupuncture. I have known others that have turned to PRP and stem cell therapies. Prolotherapy is also on the table.
Marijuana Is No Longer an Outlier
Interestingly, I do not actually know anyone who has turned to marijuana to manage pain. I have no personal knowledge of any medical cannabis patients. But I also know that marijuana is no longer an outlier. Millions of people relying on it to manage their pain is proof enough.
Whether you call it marijuana or cannabis, the key to pain relief appears to be finding the right combination of THC and CBD. Some patients respond better to THC medications and vice versa. Others respond best when the two cannabinoids are combined.
The big question in the scientific community is how cannabis actually helps manage pain. We do not know for sure. Different studies in recent years have produced different results. In fact, a pretty widely publicized study from a couple of years ago seemed to suggest that cannabis doesn’t really do anything at all – at least from a physiological standpoint.
All I know is that millions of people now rely on medical cannabis as an alternative treatment. They swear by it. I am no scientist, but that much anecdotal evidence is pretty convincing. Fortunately, science is slowly but surely catching up with patient anecdotes. Scientists are coming to the conclusion that medical cannabis is an appropriate alternative for a variety of conditions.