Cancer patients don’t use a lot of marijuana to treat their symptoms

The medical marijuana legalization movement has spent decades tugging at the hearts of Americans by suggesting that All Highness Herb is in many cases the best cure for cancer, and in some cases even a cure.

The line between reality and hype has likely sparked a riot among cancer patients who use marijuana to manage symptoms of the disease rather than relying solely on traditional treatments. However, a new study sheds light on cannabis use for dangerous tumors, and it turns out it’s not as common as you might think.

Researchers at the Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University found that cannabis use is lower in cancer patients than in those with absolutely no history of the disease. The study, recently published in the journal cancer, shows that only about 9% of cancer patients have experimented with the Doobie, compared to 14% who have never been diagnosed with cancer.

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As far as researchers can tell, not as many cancer patients are using marijuana to combat the various stages of this scourge as proponents would have us believe. Not even now that legalization has hit more than half the nation, cancer patients don’t use weed more than modern medicine.

“Even if we looked at whether someone had used cannabis in the four years of observation and we control factors such as age and race, cancer patients still did not increase their use over time like the general population,” said the study’s lead author, Bernard Fuemmeler, Ph. D., associate director of population science and interim co-director of the cancer prevention and control research program at the Massey Cancer Center, said in a statement. “I would have expected them to at least reflect what is happening in the general population,” he added.

According to the CDC, there is somewhere nearby 22 million regular monthly marijuana users in the United States.

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While there was certainly a time when more cancer patients used cannabis, there was a marked decline between 2013 and 2018. the study shows. This drop was believed to be due to patients trying and it wasn’t as effective as reported. Either that or they watched friends and family use cannabis for cancer and watched them die a horrific death.

Meanwhile, people have gotten to grips with the fact that smoking marijuana isn’t the only treatment for cancer, and they are choosing more scientific methods. “You have to look after your health and think about whether something like cannabis is helpful or harmful,” said Fuemmeler.

Photo from the National Cancer Institute via Unsplash

However, the results don’t completely rule out marijuana as a treatment option for cancer patients. Researchers said that patients who experienced greater pain were more likely to use marijuana than those who didn’t.

But that doesn’t mean cannabis is an effective means of relieving cancer pain. Some of the most comprehensive medical research released on the subject has shown over the past few years that the best thing marijuana can do for people with cancer is to tame their nausea. Other than that, there is no evidence that marijuana can cure cancer or affect it at all.

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Interestingly, the lowest rates of cannabis use were found among women, those with higher incomes, those with health insurance, and those with mental stability. In short, researchers believe that lower-income cancer patients with insufficient coverage for cures (including prescription drugs) in the healthcare industry are the ones to seek medical marijuana for the disease.

The study’s authors admitted that much more research is needed before the medical community fully understands the link between cannabis and cancer. However, they urge patients to have open and honest discussions with their GPs and oncologists before betting on cannabis.

“As with all health decisions, it is best to speak to your doctor before making any major changes,” said study co-author, Egidio Del Fabbro, MD, Chair of Palliative Care and Director of Palliative Care at Massey Cancer Center and Professor for internal medicine at the VCU.