Latest Studies Confirm Medical Marijuana Is Safe Long-Term

Donnybrook

Well-Known Member
Latest Studies Confirm Medical Marijuana Is Safe Long-Term


The latest Canadian study has confirmed that medical marijuana is a safe option – at least for those that are using it to treat chronic pain. It is, thus far, the largest study to be conducted in regards to the safety of using medical marijuanalong term.

Effectively, they found that there are not really any serious adverse effects from using medical marijuana over a long period – Canadian research gives medical marijuana a thumbs up!

“The largest study of the long-term safety of medical cannabis”

The team at Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montréal, Canada, have been doing research on the long-term safety of medical marijuana. They collected together a group of 215 people with whose chronic pain they were going to treat with marijuana to use as their test group. They had a group of 216 as a control group, whose non-cancer pain was not being treated with marijuana.

The Canadian team treated their patients with 12% potency THC cannabis, and patients were allowed to choose whether they wanted to smoke, vaporize or ingest with edibles. Patients were using 2.5 grams a day over the period of an entire year. The group of patients using cannabis in the study were, however, familiar with cannabis use and had used it in the past to treat symptoms.

“This is the first and largest study of the long-term safety of medical cannabis use by patients suffering from chronic pain ever conducted,” said the lead author of the Canadian study, Dr. Ware. The study had centers all over Canada, namely in Fredericton, Halifax, London, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

There are no adverse side effects to using medical cannabis – there are benefits!




The results of their study are not surprising given what marijuana users know about the plant. The team of researchers in Canada found that not only are there no serious adverse side effects of using marijuana – they also found that it actually improved the quality of life and the overall mood of the users.

Other than some nausea, headaches, dizziness and reported respiration discomfort because of smoking, there were no other observed side effects from using marijuana. However, participants of the study reported that their pain levels were significantly decreased, improving their quality of life and their overall mood and experience.

“Our data show that daily cannabis users had no greater risk than non-users (control group) to experience serious adverse events,’’ explains Dr. Aline Boulanger, another researcher in the study. It is generally safe to use medical cannabis.

Alternatives to marijuana for treatment of chronic pain, such as pharmaceutical pain killers have proven themselves to be dangerous and less effective than marijuana. Using medical cannabis is particularly safe if it is eaten or vaporized, as the risk of respiratory problems is removed entirely.

Cannabis poses no risk of overdose or addiction, and it improves more important factors such as the quality of life and the mood of the person using it. Cannabis seems to be winning the race as the safest and most effective thing to use for most health problems over the long term, and this latest research confirms it for the pot industry.
 

dbkick

Well-Known Member
There are no adverse side effects to using medical cannabis – there are benefits!
My ex-shrink would say different, that's why he's my ex-shrink.
 

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
No adverse effects except lung cancer, in the case of smokers.
You are misinformed. There's been a couple studies that show cannabis smokers actually develop lung cancer less than people who don't smoke at all and obviously non-smokers develop long cancer less than tobacco smokers.

You may not be able to run a marathon while regularly smoking cannabis, but you won't get lung cancer from it.
 

Federson

Active Member
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=410634&gt
JAMA goes over a lot of studies relating to the relationship between marijuana smoke and lung cancer, and a lot of the evidence points towards smoking correlating with an increased risk of lung cancer. It's a long article, but they mention that all inhailed smoke will coat the lungs in carcinogen carrying tar, and the increased length of a MJ puff vs a cigarette puff causes more tar to coat the lungs.

Furthermore the McGill university study you're linking doesn't test for lung cancer
"A number of the subjects underwent complete panels of blood tests for routine biochemistry, liver and kidney function, and selected hormone levels." https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/news/medical-cannabis-treatment-chronic-pain-255706

In fact this study only looked at the effects of medical MJ over the course of one year, which is hardly enough time for lung cancer to develop.

Edit: Of course correlation isn't causation, and some studies do suggest that pot doesn't increase lung cancer.
http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer?page=2
(lol webmd) says that some experts theorize that THC is canceling out the carcinogens, and the JAMA article mentions a study that found that increased THC content correlated with decreased chance of cancer. I guess the evidence is pretty inconclusive either way, and the real takeaway point is to stay away from cheap bud. I'll keep on vaping just in case :p
 
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rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer&ved=0ahUKEwi60Ln9gu7KAhXHKWMKHTOlAzMQFggsMAI&usg=AFQjCNH4-fhLlPb5xTmjg5fhv0Iqa8-vRg&sig2=hCQylPKsAJOCqZvcEs38ag

I guess you can believe that, but that study doesn't prove that smoking cannabis leads to lung cancer. Above is a study that shows there's no connection to lung cancer and smoking cannabis. There's some other links on it too that you can Google.

I guess we can have a link war, ha ha. The above link was a study done on over 1000 people and found even regular heavy cannabis smokers weren't at any higher risk of lung cancer than non-smokers. I also believe Dr. Tashkin even came out later to say smoking cannabis actually decreases chances of getting lung cancer. I'll look into your link some more later, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was sponsored by NIDA or a similar organization. If it is sponsored by any of them it's garbage and not worth anything at all.

There's other studies too that show THC and CBD both kill cancer cells and it's suggested that maybe the reason why cannabis smokers don't get lung cancer from cannabis.
 
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