Anesthesia & Cannabis – Cannabis | weed | marijuana

Should doctors screen patients undergoing anesthesia for cannabis? According to the Americans Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA), the answer is an unequivocal yes.

These doctors and other medical professionals base their conclusions on a single study. According to researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, cannabis users experienced 14 percent more pain than non-cannabis users the day after surgery.

The researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing pain and opioid records from 35,000 patients, including 1,600 people who used medical cannabis at least a month before their surgery.

They also found that cannabis users were seven percent more likely to use opioids to relieve pain. However, researchers admit that this statistic is not significantly higher than for non-cannabis users.

Based on the results of this single study, the “experts” call for a loss of civil liberties, especially privacy, for cannabis users.

It is becoming increasingly common for “experts” to recommend governments to overturn Western civilization’s traditional concepts of liberty and liberty. Public health and safety have become the highest political goals.

If you’re looking for a historical parallel, look at medieval Europe when the Catholic Church was the ultimate spiritual power. Just replace “scripture” with “scientific study” and “priest” with “expert” and it all makes sense.

What is the relationship between anesthesia and cannabis?

First of all, we should note that you should not eat or drink six to eight hours before the operation. This is due to aspiration, which allows substances to enter the lungs and cause complications and even death. For this reason, surgeons also recommend not smoking before surgery.

That’s good advice. But what ASRA says (and which cannabis prohibition groups parrot it) is different. They suggest a direct, toxic relationship between anesthesia and cannabis.

But is this science or scientism? Are doctors explaining the conflict between anesthesia and cannabis, or are they lecturing us on purgatory and the virtues of the Catholic Church?

You may think comparing the medical establishment to religion is idiotic. One is a scientific body. The other is spiritual courtship. So what is the actual relationship between anesthesia and cannabis?

“The association between cannabis use, pain scores, and opioid use has been reported in smaller studies, but they had conflicting results,” said Elyad Ekrami, MD, lead author of the study.

“Our study has a much larger sample size and does not include patients with a chronic pain diagnosis or patients who received regional anesthesia, which would have seriously conflicted with our results. Additionally, our study groups were balanced by confounding factors such as age, gender, tobacco and other illicit drug use, and depression and mental disorders.”

Sounds logical. The researchers have certainly done their homework. But a study with a large sample size doesn’t translate into objective, scientific fact. This study also did not specify the timing, frequency, or type of cannabis used.

Suppose cannabis and anesthesia are diametrically opposed and you want to confirm this in a study. Shouldn’t you know if the cannabis consumed was smoked or eaten? Is it a high-CBD, low-THC strain, or something else?

Anesthesia & Cannabis: What Exactly is the Problem?

“There is evidence that cannabis can be beneficial for chronic pain and nerve pain. However, early research suggests that this is not the case for acute pain such as fractured leg surgery,” said Ian Holmen, MD, another lead author of the study.

“We now understand that patients who take chronic opioids before surgery often have exaggerated pain responses and need more pain medication after surgery because they have an increased tolerance. We speculate that cannabis use could have a similar effect, but we need more research to determine if this is the case.” [emphasis added]

More research. The eternally dangling carrot of this type of study. What exactly would “more research” reveal? So far, all researchers have suggested that regular cannabis users may have a lower pain tolerance.

Is that surprising? That people who regularly use pain-relieving drugs like cannabis or opioids have lower pain tolerance?

An anesthetist may notice involuntary body movements such as an increased heart rate, high blood pressure, or increased breathing rate. These are signs that the patient is in pain; Therefore, the anesthesiologist increases the level of sevoflurane during the surgery.

How does that translate to, “Every patient in America must be screened for cannabis use prior to surgery?”

Cannabis increases a person’s heart rate and lowers blood pressure. During an operation, this can be a deadly combination. People shouldn’t walk as high as balls into a surgeon’s office. Just like they shouldn’t eat a big meal the night before.

If America has a common sense problem, look at the education system. Don’t blame cannabis users.

Warning! Anesthesia “Misinformation” below

More and more American states are legalizing cannabis. According to surveys, one in ten Americans is a regular cannabis user. ASRA warns that these cannabis users are likely to become addicted to opioids after surgery due to their reduced pain tolerance.

So instead of blaming big pharma (and their government lapdogs) for the opioid crisis, let’s blame the little guy – the cannabis user who prefers to eat edibles for pain relief.

When it comes to cannabis and anesthesia, we shouldn’t criticize cannabis. Finally, we know that cannabis contains plant cannabinoids that mimic the body’s own cannabinoids.

We know that there is no such thing as a fatal overdose or adverse side effects for healthy people, other than making them uncomfortable with large amounts of THC (which you can mitigate with other cannabinoids like CBD).

But what is anesthesia?

While researchers have a good understanding of how anesthetics work at the cellular and molecular levels, they understand little about their precise nature.

For example, we know that anesthetics like cannabis bind to specific proteins in the brain called receptors, which are responsible for transmitting nerve impulses.

However, the exact details of how this binding leads to the inhibition of neurotransmitter release and the blocking of pain signals are not yet fully understood.

Perhaps instead of proposing governments to violate the privacy rights of cannabis users, ASRA should continue to explore what the heck is wrong with anesthesia.

The number one problem with anesthesia and cannabis

Of course, this whole study was nonsense for two reasons. First, it was not a randomized controlled trial. There is a replication crisis in scientific research. This anesthesia and cannabis study did not eradicate the implicit bias of its researchers.

Second, the researchers in this study believe they can objectively measure pain. Remember when they said that cannabis users are 14 percent more likely to have pain and 7 percent more likely to take opioids for the pain?

The problem is that pain is subjective. It is perceived and experienced differently by each person.

Pain is a personal and unique sensation that cannot be directly measured or observed. It is influenced by various factors including the person’s physical condition, emotional state, cultural background and past experiences of pain.

Some people may be more sensitive to pain than others, and the same stimulus that causes pain in one person may not cause pain in another. The way a person deals with and expresses pain can also vary greatly.

In other words, this study is rubbish.

Smoking or eating cannabis before surgery is a bad idea because smoking or eating before surgery is a bad idea.

But is there a direct, toxic relationship between anesthesia and cannabis? It may be. But no objective scientific method currently supports this, despite what ASRA or corporate press headlines might suggest.