Is Medical Marijuana is More Effective Than Other Treatments
It has come to light that certain experts believe more investigative studies on the effectiveness of medical marijuana is needed, marijuana users undergoing the controversial treatment believe in its healing ability at least for certain conditions.
A little more than 75% of marijuana users states they use medical cannabis because other treatments are not as efficient or cause too many harmful side effects, or both, according to the results of a survey that took place by PatientsLikeMe. The patient powered search network did not ask participants any more questions about prior treatments.
Sally Okun, vice president of Advocacy, Policy, and Patient Safety at PatientsLikeMe, said to Forbes that even though the survey did not ask respondents about prior treatments, it is safe to infer things from the information or previous research.
“For example we know multiple sclerosis has a host of disease-modifying treatments,” she said. “While we don’t expect people will replace them with medical marijuana, they may be using marijuana to manage associated symptoms that disease-modifying treatments such as Baclofen don’t address, including stiffness and spasticity.”
She continued: “From prior research we also know that patients living with fibromyalgia experience many problems with sleep, so we might presume that these patients tried marijuana after trying other sleep aids. We also know that people with depression often have other mental and physical symptoms such as anxiety or back pain, or both.”
Using medical marijuana assist with treating pain, muscle aches or spasms, sleep deprivation, and anxiety, the survey found. Another reason why users prefer marijuana is because they believe it is more natural.
Okun stated the top five medical issues represented in the survey were multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, depression, PTSD, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. “The respondents are living with a variety of conditions — in all 70 different primary conditions,” she said.
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