Cannabis can make patients ‘less bothered by pain’

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative varieties, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis.

These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre (hemp), for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug.

Industrial hemp products are made from Cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fiber.

A study from the University of Oxford suggests shows that Cannabis makes pain more bearable rather than actually reducing it.

Researchers has found out  that the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis reduced activity in a part of the brain linked to emotional aspects of pain.

The Oxford researchers recruited 12 healthy men to take part in their small study and the participants were given a 15mg tablet of THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) – the ingredient that is responsible for the high – or a placebo.

The volunteers then had a cream rubbed into the skin of one leg to induce pain, creams that can a burning and painful sensation.

The participant undergo four MRI scans which revealed how their brain activity changed when their perception of the pain reduced and this proved how Cannabis appears to mainly affect the emotional reaction to pain in a highly variable way.”

The study was lead by author from Oxford University’s Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, Dr Michael Lee.

Dr Michael Lee said: “We found that with THC, on average people didn’t report any change in the burn, but the pain bothered them less.”
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