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The global market for legal marijuana is likely to be worth over $73 billion by 2027. This expansion is truly remarkable when you consider how new the industry is. Not so long ago, marijuana was completely illegal almost everywhere on the planet.
One of the reasons for marijuana’s continued popularity growth is its capacity to treat pain. Millions of people suffering from pain issues, who had no lasting success with traditional pain medication, have found relief with cannabis.
Read on as we look a little closer at the relationship between cannabis and pain, and explain why weed is the best pain relief medication you could ever use.
Why is Cannabis Used for Pain Treatment?
To understand why cannabis treats pain so well, we must first consider what pain is.
There are two primary types of pain. These are nociceptive pain (inflammation) and neuropathic pain. Cannabis can be an effective treatment for both, although in different ways.
Nociceptive pain arises from conditions like arthritis. As this study explains, cannabis addresses this kind of pain through its anti-inflammatory effects on CB2 receptors, an important element of our endocannabinoid system.
Neuropathic pain results from nerve damage. It arises in patients in conditions like sciatica and fibromyalgia. Scientists are still trying to figure out the exact method by which cannabis treats this kind of pain, but they have observed it to be highly effective.
The Benefits of Medical Marijuana
When compared to traditional pharmaceutical pain relief products, marijuana has many advantages.
First, it does not pose risks to your organs in the way that other pain treatments do. Overuse of ibuprofen, for example, can present risks to your kidneys and heart over time.
Many pain medications also expose you to the risk of physical dependency. Opioids, in particular, are highly addictive. As it is not physically addictive, cannabis does not pose this risk.
Medical marijuana patients can even grow their own stash. If this is something you might like to get involved in, you should check out online about the best marijuana seeds to buy.
How to Use Marijuana for Pain
There are countless ways to consume marijuana. All can be effective in pain treatment, although some are better suited to certain situations than others.
Smoking
Whether through a bong, blunt, or spliff, smoking remains the best-known and most common way of consuming cannabis. It’s quite convenient when you have the necessary apparatus, and you can feel the effects almost instantly once you start smoking.
As the effects come on so quickly, you won’t be waiting too long for pain relief. This also means that you can dose carefully if you’re not used to weed; if you feel alright after one hit, you can keep taking more at regular intervals until you get the desired effect.
A disadvantage of smoking is that it can be damaging to your lungs, particularly if you mix your weed with tobacco.
Vaping
Vaping is a modern alternative to smoking. You put your bud in a vaporizer that has a small internal oven, which reaches very high temperatures. Once heated, the weed will emit a vapor that you inhale.
This is reportedly a safer method than smoking as weed vapor does not pose the same risks to your lungs as smoke. It’s also more discreet than smoking, which means you can do it almost anywhere.
This is the perfect ingestion method for anyone who needs regular pain relief throughout the day.
Eating
If you cook cannabis on low heat in oil or butter, you can then use this oil or butter to make edibles. Eating these will give rise to the same effects as smoking or vaping weed.
There are important differences to be aware of, however. Cannabis hits much harder when you eat it and the effects last far longer.
This means that you should be careful with edibles unless you’re an experienced user. However, the fact that edible cannabis lasts longer makes it ideal for those struggling to get a full night’s sleep due to pain.
Medical Marijuana Research
As medical marijuana moves further and further into the mainstream, research on it becomes more common. Scientists are uncovering important new truths about cannabis every day.
Many of these relate to the entourage effect. As this study explains, experts now believe that the reason for the different effects of different cannabis strains is the presence of lesser-known cannabinoids such as CBG and CBN.
Are There Risks Associated With Medical Marijuana?
When marijuana was illegal, rumors about the damage it could cause to habitual users were widespread. We were told that weed caused chronic laziness, memory loss, and cognitive decline.
As it becomes increasingly obvious that this was largely untrue, many people wonder whether there are any risks to medical marijuana at all. The truth is that while marijuana is much safer than we were led to believe years ago, there are certain things to be aware of.
Evidence suggests that marijuana may be risky for the neurological development of younger people. Experts, therefore, recommend that you wait until at least the age of 21 to start regularly using cannabis.
There may also be a link between cannabis use and schizophrenia. However, causation is difficult to establish here.
Patient Insights
Many patients who use marijuana for pain relief report results that are almost unbelievable. It is common to hear claims that cannabis replaced traditional pain medicines entirely, costing less and causing fewer negative side-effects.
This report, for example, sums up reports of patients who used marijuana to manage pain associated with multiple sclerosis. They claim that marijuana helps them to manage their pain in a way that only heavy sedatives can. Using marijuana allows them to treat their pain while retaining energy and the ability to carry on with their daily lives.
The Best Pain Treatment in 2020
There are many good reasons to make cannabis your pain treatment of choice. It’s highly effective in a lot of cases and doesn’t cause issues with dependency or organ damage as more traditional pain treatments commonly do.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can benefit from cannabis or you want to make an order for one of our products, contact us today.