Although already existing anecdotal evidence was enough to confirm the efficacy of marijuana at relieving pain, a study just confirmed it formally while also cementing the fact that the drug is a powerful tool to treat insomnia, finds a study published in the ‘Journal of Psychoactive Drugs’.
It looked at 1000 people taking legalized marijuana in an American state and deduced that among the 65% of people who took cannabis for pain, 80% found it to be ‘extremely’ helpful. Notably, 82% of these people were able to reduce or completely give up their dependency on opioid pain-relievers.
Further analysis of the survey showed that nearly 74% of the 1000 interviewees bought it to help insomnia, 84% of whom said the drug allowed them to easily fall asleep. Furthermore, 83% of the latter had reduced or completely stopped taking over-the-counter sleeping pills or prescription sleep aids.
Besides adding more anecdotal evidence to confirm marijuana’s efficacy at treating the two symptoms/conditions, the study has also pointed toward the drug’s knack for replacing opioid medicines completely.
The United States is in the midst of an opioid crisis and it is high time that some effective measures were taken to deal with its menace.
Over time people develop tolerance to opioids, which implies that they need higher doses to achieve the same results. This tendency of the body forces chronic patients to take heavier doses, which increases their vulnerability to fall prey to its overdose.
Similarly, cannabis could effectively and safely replace sleeping pills and other sleep-inducing agents which besides making a person ‘dependent’ can also cause grogginess the next day, often interfering with people’s work and social lives.
