Posts

Prescribing cannabis for harm reduction.

Authors: Mark Collen
Harm Reduction Journal, 1 January 2012

Neuropathic pain affects between 5% and 10% of the US population and can be refractory to treatment. Opioids may be recommended as a second-line pharmacotherapy but have risks including overdose and death. Cannabis has been shown to be effective for treating nerve pain without…

Cannabinoid-opioid interaction in chronic pain.

Authors: D. I. Abrams, P. Couey, S. B. Shade, M. E. Kelly, N. L. Benowitz
Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, December 2011

Cannabinoids and opioids share several pharmacologic properties and may act synergistically. The potential pharmacokinetics and the safety of the combination in humans are unknown. We therefore undertook a study to answer these questions. Twenty-one individuals with chronic pa…

Cannabidiol prevents the development of cold and mechanical allodynia in paclitaxel-treated female C57Bl6 mice.

Authors: Sara Ward, Michael Ramirez, Harshini Neelakantan, Ellen Walker
Anesthesia and Analgesia, October 2011

The taxane chemotherapeutic paclitaxel frequently produces peripheral neuropathy in humans. Rodent models to investigate mechanisms and treatments are largely restricted to male rats, whereas female mouse studies are lacking. We characterized a range of paclitaxel doses on col…

Cannabis in palliative medicine: improving care and reducing opioid-related morbidity.

Authors: Gregory T. Carter, Aaron M. Flanagan, Mitchell Earleywine, Donald I. Abrams, et al
American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, August 2011

Unlike hospice, long-term drug safety is an important issue in palliative medicine. Opioids may produce significant morbidity. Cannabis is a safer alternative with broad applicability for palliative care. Yet the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classifies cannabis as Schedule I…

Smoked cannabis for chronic neuropathic pain: a randomized controlled trial.

Authors: Mark A. Ware, Tongtong Wang, Stan Shapiro, Ann Robinson, Thierry Ducruet, Thao Huynh, et al
CMAJ, 5 October 2010

BACKGROUND: Chronic neuropathic pain affects 1%-2% of the adult population and is often refractory to standard pharmacologic treatment. Patients with chronic pain have reported using smoked cannabis to relieve pain, improve sleep and improve mood. METHODS: Adults with post-tra…

A randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial of cannabis cigarettes in neuropathic pain.

Authors: Barth Wilsey, Thomas Marcotte, Alexander Tsodikov, Jeanna Millman, Heather Bentley, et al
The Journal of Pain, June 2008

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) report that no sound scientific studies support the medicinal use of cannabis. Despite this lack of scientific validatio…

Adjunctive nabilone in cancer pain and symptom management: a prospective observational study using propensity scoring.

Authors: Vincent Maida, Marguerite Ennis, Shiraz Irani, Mario Corbo, Michael Dolzhykov
Journal of Supportive Oncology, March 2008

A prospective observational study assessed the effectiveness of adjuvant nabilone (Cesamet) therapy in managing pain and symptoms experienced by advanced cancer patients. The primary outcomes were the differences between treated and untreated patients at 30 days’ follow-up, in…

A review of nabilone in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.

Authors: Mark A Ware, Paul Daeninck, Vincent Maida
Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management, February 2008

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in cancer patients places a significant burden on patients’ function and quality of life, their families and caregivers, and healthcare providers. Despite the advances in preventing CINV, a substantial proportion of patients expe…

Cannabis, pain, and sleep: lessons from therapeutic clinical trials of Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine.

Authors: Ethan B. Russo, Geoffrey W. Guy, Philip J. Robson
Chemistry & Biodiversity, August 2007

Cannabis sativa L. has been utilized for treatment of pain and sleep disorders since ancient times. This review examines modern studies on effects of Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) on sleep. It goes on to report new information on the effects on sleep…

Preliminary assessment of the efficacy, tolerability and safety of a cannabis-based medicine (Sativex) in the treatment of pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis.

Authors: D. R. Blake, P. Robson, M. Ho, R. W. Jubb, C. S. McCabe
Rheumatology, January 2006

OBJECTIVES: To assess the efficacy of a cannabis-based medicine (CBM) in the treatment of pain due to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: We compared a CBM (Sativex) with placebo in a randomized, double-blind, parallel group study in 58 patients over 5 weeks of treatment. The…

Pain measurements and side effect profile of the novel cannabinoid ajulemic acid.

Authors: Kahlid Salim, Udo Schneider, Sumner Burstein, Ludwig Hoy, Matthias Karst
Neuropharmacology, June 2005

Preclinical findings on ajulemic acid (AJA) showed analgesic and anti-allodynic effects without psychoactive properties making it an appealing substance for the treatment of pain. A recently published randomized double-blind crossover clinical trial described the pain-reducing…

Cannabinoids and brain injury: therapeutic implications.

Authors: Raphael Mechoulam, David Panikashvili, Esther Shohami
Trends in Molecular Medicine, February 2002

Mounting in vitro and in vivo data suggest that the endocannabinoids anandamide and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol, as well as some plant and synthetic cannabinoids, have neuroprotective effects following brain injury. Cannabinoid receptor agonists inhibit glutamatergic synaptic tran…