In the battle to fight pain, opioids play a significant role, but as more people become aware of their dangers, they seek options which can prove to be safer. Opioids are considered to have significant side effects including constipation, impaired sleep, respiratory depression, and the risk of use disorder and related mortality.
Sometimes using combinations of medicines can create a complementary effect which allows less of each of the medications to be used, but still harness the desired analgesic effect.
The authors of this study conducted a systematic review of pre-clinical and clinical studies for which the outcome was measured specifically as pain relief or opioid dosage. The findings were significant.
They found that when THC was administered, the median effective dose of morphine was 3.6 times lower than with morphine alone. Similarly, they found that the median effective dose of codeine was 9.5 times lower than with codeine alone.
Naturally this is good news for medical marijuana patients because it is essentially impossible to overdose on marijuana.
