POT CAN CUT CHRONIC PAIN WITHOUT A HIGH

Briefly inhaling cannabis three times a day eases a kind of chronic
pain that affects tens of thousands of Canadians -- without making
them high -- Montreal researchers are reporting.

The new study, the first clinical trial in the world to allow patients
to take marijuana home with them and "self-dose," found that for
people with neuropathic pain -- a common and dreaded condition that
causes electric, stabbing pain -- smoking cannabis reduced pain,
improved mood and helped them sleep.

Three potencies (2.5 per cent, six per cent and 9.4 per cent) of THC,
marijuana's active ingredient, were tested against a placebo in 21
patients with neuropathic pain, none of whom had responded to standard
treatments.

Participants inhaled a single dose through a pipe three times daily
for five days, followed by a nine-day "washout" period.

Patients reported less pain, better sleep and less anxiety when they
were smoking the highest concentration of THC, compared with the placebo.

It wasn't a massive reduction in pain: The average daily pain
intensity was 5.4 with 9.4 per cent THC, versus 6.1 with the placebo.

"But the patients that we were recruiting had to be patients that had
tried and failed all other conventional treatments," said lead author
Dr. Mark Ware, director of clinical research at the McGill University
Health Centre. The study appears in the latest issue of the Canadian
Medical Association Journal.