There is a tsunami of enthusiasm for medical cannabis. Rolling Stone is touting “medical pot” as the best hope to fight the opioid crisis. Newsweek has introduced the world to the “father of marijuana research” and even offered suggestions for using cannabis in holiday cooking.

Although still in its infancy, the science behind medical cannabis is growing rapidly. ClinicalTrials.gov lists 139 research studies underway. PubMed.gov lists 5,615 articles about “medical cannabis” and over 25,000 articles about “marijuana.” By comparison, PubMed lists only 112 articles about kratom.

The National Academy of Science released “The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids” report in January 2017, stating that there is “evidence to support that patients who were treated with cannabis or cannabinoids were more likely to experience a significant reduction in pain symptoms.”

The biggest issue in many studies is the lack of a good placebo for marijuana, as described in a recent JAMA Internal Medicine article: “Many trial subjects can distinguish between active cannabis and placebo.” This means that blinding subjects to obtain unbiased results is difficult, which makes the findings insufficient to get FDA approval as a medication.

More of this news at Pain News Network