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Marijuana Pill May Be Better for Pain Relief than Smoked Marijuana

slimvictor

slimvictor

Bluelight Crew
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Dec 29, 2008
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A pill form of marijuana provides greater pain relief than when a person smokes it, according to a new study.

The study was conducted by researchers at Columbia University in New York and was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

The pill, known as Dronabinol, contains the active ingredient of marijuana - tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - and has already been approved to treat chemotherapy and AIDS patients with nausea and vomiting.

The scientists said:

"Recent studies have demonstrated the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids to treat pain, yet none have compared the analgesic effectiveness of smoked marijuana to orally administered tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; dronabinol)."


The study involved 30 participants (15 male and 15 female) who were marijuana smokers. The researchers, led by Ziva Cooper and Margaret Haney, set out to compare subjects' daily pain response.

The volunteers were asked either to smoke marjuana, take oral Dronabinol, or a placebo. They then took part in an experiment called a "cold pressor test" where they immersed their hand into a bath of very cold water (4 degrees celsius) for up to two minutes.

How long it took them to report pain (pain sensitivity) and remove their hand from the water (pain tolerance) were documented.

Results showed that compared to placebo, marijuana and Dronabinol:
  1. lowered subjective ratings of pain
  2. reduced pain sensitivity
  3. increased pain tolerance

A past study found that for patients with chronic neuropathic pain, smoking cannabis reduced their symptoms of pain, improved their mood and helped them sleep.

However, the experts in the current study found that the drug Dronabinol provided a longer-lasting effect in pain sensitivity and was less susceptible to abuse-associated outcomes, compared to marijuana.

They explained:

"The magnitude of peak change in pain sensitivity and tolerance did not differ between marijuana and dronabinol, although dronabinol produced analgesia that was of a longer duration."

cont at
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/259482.php
 
Cannabis edibles would provide the same advantages as Dronabinol (eg longer duration) w/o the need of an expensive pharmaceutical. but since they haven't even considered this in this study, I guess, they only want to promote Dronabinol against medical marijuana...
 
Sounds like taking all the fun out of just rolling up the plant and smoking it, not to mention the amount of money it would cost to mass produce something like that, when growing you're own plant is so easy.
 
Sounds better than that nasal spray stuff anyway. I guess not everyone could grow and roll or bake or buy edible etc. So yeah sounds pretty cool I guess.
 
No surprise.
Orally-ingested cannabis produces effects that last longer than smoked cannabis.
I wish they had compared the pill with oral cannabis, as someone mentioned above. It would have been much more relevant and interesting.
 
I wish they had compared the pill with oral cannabis, as someone mentioned above. It would have been much more relevant and interesting.
Click to expand...

One implication would be that they found the results *too* promising. Oral cannabis is probably more tolerable than pure THC, and the presence of additional plant-derived cannabinoids can't hurt. (namely, CBD improves psychological response to THC, with less anxiety/paranoia etc)

Honestly, though, this was done in NY, where weed is not exactly free and legal ... I would imagine it would be difficult at this stage to get funding for a study that involved feeding people pot brownies. Maybe next year.
 
WeedIndeed said:
This study is a joke, I hope it won't be taken seriously.
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Explain. Why do you think it's a joke?

The methodology is pretty sound, this is how pain response is tested in general for all sorts of drugs. Opioids, NSAIDs, local anesthetics, etc. Or slight variants on it like a hot plate/pulsed MASER/LASER, electric shock.

Why do you want people to not take this scientific study seriously? Because the FACTS found by empirical observation in accordance with the scientific method, performed by experts, happen to disagree with socio-political stance?

You make me sick. You are in every sense as bad as people who want to disregard scientific studies to keep prohibition in place.

science.jpg
 
They have been trying to say marinol is better for relief than smoking for well over 20 years. Everybody knows its not true. Maybe for a small set of people but that's about it. The verdict has been in for a long time, Marinol sucks.
 
I dunno, I put a little more weight on controlled studies done in the lab than anecdotes from people who tend to have biases in the pro-weed smoking direction.
 
Last edited:
I don't know why dronabinol has such a bad reputation in the recreational community. In contrast, there's no anti-morphine snobbery from opium smokers.
 
^

Very true. Nor is there is anti-fentanyl or anti-pethidine from morphine users. (Like all the hate on synthetic cannabinoids.)

Pot heads are nearly religious in their devotion to their drug of choice, what gives?
 
Of course they will say it's better... they can profit from it.

What's wrong with legalizing cannabis and eating it the old fashioned way?
 
Very few research scientists who work at academic institutions are connected to industry in any way. They don't profit from their findings, they're on a salary with tenure.

What's wrong with legalizing it and eating the old fashioned way? Nothing is "wrong" with it. But it's kind of like eating opium instead of taking an MScontin. Dosage control issues, etc.
 
rangrz said:
Very few research scientists who work at academic institutions are connected to industry in any way. They don't profit from their findings, they're on a salary with tenure..
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this is simply not the case.
See this article, for example, or this study of the odds that research supported by pharm companies would be published (publication bias), or this one in the Washington Post that exposed that the practice is common, or this one that concluded that publication in prestigious journals was associated with funding from the pharm industry rather than the quality of the study, or this one, etc.
 
But this study is not the typical category funded by Pharma.

It's comparing cannabis (not patentable, even in principle) with a drug that has been marketed for some time already. It's not comparing a novel compound to competitors product. Nor is it an overly profitable drug period.
 
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