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MEDICAL CANNABIS NO EXCUSE FOR RECREATIONAL USE
The commencement of the Australian push to legalise recreational use of cannabis by celebrity chef Pete Evans (Channel 7’s Sunday Night program 8.30 tonight)[i] seeks to capitalise on overblown perceptions of the effectiveness of cannabis as a medicine.
When recording the interview for the Sunday Night program, Drug Free Australia referenced the most authoritative review of scientific studies on cannabis worldwide[ii] by the historically progressive-leaning US National Institutes of Health. The 464 page 2017 review by 31 of the USA’s top medical researchers found only a handful of medical conditions that cannabis treats, mostly with only modest results. The conditions are chronic pain, nausea, MS, AIDS wasting, Tourette’s syndrome and PTSD, for which there were conflicting results for the latter. For most of these conditions there is not just one but many available therapies more effective than medical cannabis. Various other conditions which cannabis has been imagined to effectively treat, such as dementia or glaucoma, fail to show effectiveness in clinical studies. Any other conditions mentioned on the Sunday Night program can be treated with commercially available cannabis preparations in Australia, pharmaceutically standardised for dose, strength and purity, via the government’s medical cannabis Special Access availability, negating any need for grow-your-own cannabis. Such conditions are not numerous.
An extensive 2018 review of 104 journal studies on 9,958 chronic non-cancer pain patients[iii] found that cannabis was not highly effective for chronic pain, and moreso useful only as an adjunct to other therapies. Given that 90-94% of medical cannabis patients in various US states access medical cannabis for chronic pain,[iv] the relatively poor outcomes raise questions as to why it is preferred. And indeed, when profiles for regular chronic pain BRIEF for Journalistspatients are compared to the profiles of US medical cannabis patients they are sharply different. A majority of chronic pain patients are women mostly in their 80s while men are in their 60s.[v] Medical cannabis chronic pain patients are 75% men with an average 32 years of age, mostly having commenced cannabis use as teenagers.[vi] This suggests that medical cannabis for most is just a cheap form of recreational use accessed by ruse. Doctors, of course, cannot objectively verify chronic pain, relying on a patient’s subjective descriptions.
The only conditions for which cannabis appears to be uniquely effective are for childhood epilepsies where US trials using the cannabinoid Cannabidiol (CBD) reduced seizures by 20% more than placebo.[vii]
In the hour long interview, Drug Free Australia drew attention to the troubling deficits of cannabis, where a recent Lancet study estimated that 30% of new cases of psychoses and schizophrenia in London, and 50% of new cases in Amsterdam, could have been avoided if high THC cannabis was not available. Also not aired on the program was mention of the scientifically-established link between cannabis and violence, where it is common for women in women’s refuges to draw out the connection between their partner’s cannabis withdrawal, agitation and the violence that caused them to leave. With cannabis associated with suicide, depression, anxiety and drugged driving deaths it is quite evident why Australian GPs have not rushed to prescribe it. Accordingly, appeals to any imagined overall medical effectiveness of cannabis as a rationale for legalising recreational use is simply not founded in real evidence.
Gary Christian
RESEARCH DIRECTOR
Drug Free Australia
O422 163 141
[i] https://7news.com.au/sunday-night/this-week-on-sunday-night-the-cannabis-debate-c-375616
[ii] http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2017/health-effects-of-cannabis-and-cannabinoids.aspx
[iii] https://insights.ovid.com/pain/jpain/2018/10/000/cannabis-cannabinoids-treatment-people-chronic/6/00006396
[iv] Arizona Department of Health Services (Apr. 14, 2011-Nov. 7, 2012) Arizona Medical Marijuana Act Monthly Report, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (Dec. 31, 2012) Medical Marijuana Registry Program Update, Oregon Health Authority (Oct. 1, 2014) “Oregon Medical Marijuana Program Statistics
[v] Blyth et al. “Chronic PainAustralia: A prevalence study” (Jan. 2001) Pain
[vi] https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1477-7517-4-16
[vii] https://mjobserver.com/health/gw-pharmaceuticals-gwph-reports-positive-phase-3-trials-for-epidiolex-in-patients-with-seizures-associated-with-tuberous-sclerosis-complex/