[robertpaulsen]

Care to guess the #1 reason for recommending medical marijuana? Did you guess glaucoma? Nausea fron cancer/chemotherapy? AIDS wasting?

#1 reason? Pain.

"Data from (the GAO report for) Hawaii and Oregon also showed that about 75 percent -- and more than 80 percent respectively -- of the physicians' recommendations were for severe pain and conditions associated with muscle spasms ..."
-- cannabisnews.com

[Skooz]

I smoked dope for 12 years. It never had any effect on my physical pain whatsoever. I did notice that if I had a bad cold, it would either make me feel much better or much worse. But, that is just my anecdotal knowledge. Just my experience.

[MrLeRoy]

"Data from (the GAO report for) Hawaii and Oregon also showed that about 75 percent -- and more than 80 percent respectively -- of the physicians' recommendations were for severe pain and conditions associated with muscle spasms ..."

So people with severe pain should just take it for the War On Some Drugs?

[Wolfie]

Pot’s Pain Reliving Qualities

“The available evidence from animal and human studies indicates that cannabinoids can have a substantial analgesic [pain relieving] effect. One exception is the lack of analgesic effect in studies on experimentally induced acute pain, but because of limitations in the design of those studies they were inconclusive.

Further clinical work is warranted to establish the magnitude of the effect in different clinical conditions and to determine whether the effect is sustained. Although the usefulness of cannabinoids appears to be limited by side effects, notably sedation, other effects such as anxiolysis, appetite stimulation, and perhaps antinausea and antispasticity effects should be studied in randomized, controlled clinical trials.

These very ‘special’ effects might warrant development of cannabinoid drugs for particular clinical populations.”

(SOURCE: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A. Benson, Jr., Editors Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, Institute of Medicine)