The health benefits of cannabis are coming into clearer focus, with medical consumers most commonly using marijuana to treat muscle pain, anxiety, depression, joint pain and insomnia, Strainprint Technologies Inc. notes in a new report.

The report, the Canadian Medical Cannabis Experience: A 2019 Patient Retrospective, offers a sweeping view of how patients are using cannabis and is informed by “more than 800,000, real-time anonymous patient outcomes” throughout the 2018 calendar year.

Among the more interesting findings were the conditions patients were most looking to treat using cannabis—muscle pain, anxiety, depression, joint pain and insomnia—and that there were clear gender differences when it came to preferred method of drug administration.

Strainprint tracks data on cannabis consumption in real time, relying on anonymous patient reports to its proprietary app, as well as surveys and questionnaires available on its website.

“Real-world patient data is invaluable for medical professionals and industry stakeholders looking to make informed choices for their patients and businesses,” said company president Dave Berg. “Medical cannabis hasn’t had decades of clinical trials to form guidelines on dosing, onset and efficiency, and with over 450 chemical constituents in every strain, it is not like studying single molecules in traditional pharma.”

The report also found, not surprisingly, that a large majority of patients reported positive or neutral responses to their medical cannabis, with very few returning unfavourable reports. There was also no measurable change to how and when patients consumed medical cannabis after the drug was legalized for recreational use in Canada last year.