POT MAY ACTUALLY MAKE PAIN WORSE, NEW STUDY SUGGESTS

Marijuana's painkilling properties are being called into question by
new research that suggests the drug can amplify and prolong pain
rather than relieve it.

A study published in the current issue of Science suggests prescribing
marijuana for pain relief, which is legal in a number of countries
including Canada, may be counter-productive. Experiments with rodents
and humans found that a group of compounds that includes cannabinoids,
the active ingredients in marijuana, can interfere with the body's
mechanisms to stop pain signals from reaching the brain.

"If you had a toothache, you probably wouldn't want to treat it with
marijuana, because you could actually make it worse," said University
of Texas Prof. Volker Neugebauer, one of the study's authors. Health
Canada allows those suffering from debilitating illnesses to access
marijuana for medical use to treat severe pain from conditions such as
multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, cancer, arthritis, and HIV/AIDS.

Researchers from the U. S., Switzerland, Hungary, Japan, Germany,
France and Venezuela collaborated on the research.