Evidence of Marijuana’s Medical Usefulness Mounts

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The current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) includes two articles that review studies of marijuana's medical utility and come to similar conclusions about the applications that are best supported by the existing evidence: treatment of chronic pain, neuropathic pain and spasticity.

There is also substantial evidence that THC, marijuana's main active ingredient, is effective at relieving nausea and restoring appetite.

In a review commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, Penny Whiting, a senior research fellow at the University of Bristol, and her co-authors consider 79 randomized clinical trials of cannabinoids involving about 6,500 subjects. Only two of the studies assessed marijuana itself; the others involved marijuana-based medications such as Marinol (synthetic THC in capsules) and Sativex (an oral spray containing cannabis extract).

Per the Swiss government's instructions, Whiting et al. looked for evidence of cannabinoids' effectiveness in...

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URL: 
http://www.newsweek.com/evidence-marijuanas-medical-usefulness-mounts-351293