Cannabis has historically been used as an analgesic,12-14 and patients often report significant pain relief from marijuana.15-20 Some of the most encouraging clinical data on effects of cannabinoids on chronic pain are from studies of intractable cancer pain and hard-to-treat neuropathic pain.21 After reviewing a series of trials in 1997, the U.S. Society for Neuroscience concluded that "substances similar to or derived from marijuana could benefit the more than 97 million Americans who experience some form of pain each year."22

A 1999 study commissioned by the White House and conducted by the Institute of Medicine recognizes the role that cannabis can play in treating chronic pain.23 "After nausea and vomiting, chronic pain was the condition cited most often to the IOM study team as a medicinal use for marijuana."The study found that "basic biology indicates a role for cannabinoids [a group of compounds found in cannabis] in pain and control of movement, which is consistent with a possible therapeutic role in these areas. The evidence is relatively strong for the treatment of pain and intriguingly, although less well established, for movement disorder." According to the IOM Report, a number of areas in the brain that have an established role in sensing and processing pain respond to the analgesic effect of cannabis, adding that cannabinoids have been used successfully to treat cancer pain, which is often resistant to treatment with opiates.

The Report further notes that cannabinoids serve as an anti-inflammatory agent, and so have therapeutic potential in preventing and reducing pain caused by the swelling of body tissues (such as arthritis).

In addition to it's analgesic properties, the IOM Report indicates that cannabis, like its synthetic cousin Marinol, can help treat the nausea often induced by opiate therapy, especially when other antiemetics prove ineffective. In short, the IOM Report recognizes the potential benefits of cannabis for certain patients, including:

· Chemotherapy patients, especially those being treated for mucositis, nausea, and anorexia.

· Postoperative pain patients (using cannabinoids as an opioid adjunct to reduce the nausea and vomiting).

· Patients with spinal cord injury, peripheral neuropathic pain, or central post-stroke pain.

· Patients with chronic pain and insomnia.

· AIDS patients with cachexia, AIDS neuropathy, or any significant pain problem.

Britain's House of Lords reached similar conclusions and called for legalized cannabis by prescription.24

Several studies have found that cannabinoids have analgesic effects in animal models, sometimes equivalent to codeine.25-29 Cannabinoids also seem to synergize with opioids, which often lose their effectiveness as patients build up tolerance. One study found morphine was 15 times more active in rats with the addition of a small dose of THC. Codeine was enhanced on the order of 900 fold.30

In 1990, researchers conducted a double-blind study comparing the antispasmodic and analgesic effects of THC, oral Codeine, and a placebo on a single patient suffering from a spinal cord injury.31 Their findings confirmed the analgesic effects of THC being "equivalent to codeine." A 1997 study made similar findings related to morphine.32

A 1999 article reviewing the body of scientific animal research concerning the analgesic effects of marijuana concludes that "[t]here is now unequivocal evidence that cannabinoids are antinociceptive [capable of blocking the appreciation or transmission of pain] in animal models of acute pain."33

In 2001, British researchers reported that cannabis extract sprayed under the tongue was effective in reducing pain in 18 of 23 patients who were suffering from intractable neuropathic pain.34

http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=4557

Study after study after study Alot of cash being made a lot of cash being wasted. Lets thank the Americans for giving us the word Marijuanna, lets thank the Americans for Paraquat sprayed on Mexican fields that was then sold and causd my chronic bronchitis, lets thank the Americans for their war on drugs, Lets thank the war on drugs Czars for the mentality and the indifference that we now have to deal with as well as all our other day to day strifes. STUDIES - hell if it does the trick and keeps us from being sick LEGALIZE it Quick