Study: Vaping Marijuana Effective for Pain Management

When it comes to pain management, a new study suggests that patients who use vaporizers to consume medical marijuana could experience excellent results.

A team of Israeli scientists recently conducted a clinical trial in which they discovered that patients who vaporized whole-plant cannabis felt a substantial amount of relief from nerve pain. These findings, which were published in the latest edition of the Journal of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, indicate that the majority of the study participants reported this reduction as the result of a Skqe inhaler.

Throughout the course of the study, patients reported relief of chronic neuropathic pain within a few minutes after ingesting vaporized marijuana, giving way to the idea that this practice could some day become an alternative to taking prescription painkillers.

“A significant 45 percent reduction in pain intensity was noted 20 minutes post inhalation (P = .001), turning back to baseline within 90 minutes. Tolerable, lightheadedness, lasting 15–30 minutes and requiring no intervention, was the only reported adverse event,” according to the study.

What is most interesting is that study participants were not forced to get stoned in order to experience substantial relief. Patients were only given a small 15.1 ± 0.1 mg dose of marijuana, which is not enough to prevent them, in any way, from carrying out the responsibilities of their every day lives.

These study results are consistent with previous studies that have concluded that inhaling whole-plant cannabis is effective in treating neuropathy. “This trial suggests the potential use of the Syqe Inhaler device as a smokeless delivery system of medicinal cannabis, producing a delta-9-THC pharmacokinetic profile with low inter-individual variation of (maximum drug/plasma concentrations), achieving pharmaceutical standards for inhaled drugs,” concluded the study authors.