The use of cannabis, both for medical and recreational reasons, is rising in the United States.
In 2022, the CDC says over 60 million Americans used cannabis. Research from the University of Michigan finds more than four million of that 60 million were licensed medical cannabis patients. That’s a six-fold increase from 2016.
The majority of those patients are hoping to ease their pain.
“My studies have shown that people largely use cannabis for chronic pain,” University of Michigan pain researcher Kevin Boehnke, PH.D. “That’s the most common reason that they obtain a medical cannabis license from the state that they live in.”
Patients are using cannabis in a variety of different ways.
“They might eat, smoke, or use tincture, as well as rub a topical product on an inflamed joint or on their skin and they also sometimes use it in place of other pain medications,” Boehnke said.
Currently, marijuana is labeled as a Schedule One drug, the most restrictive class. But there is talk of it potentially being rescheduled to a Schedule Three drug.
“If cannabis is officially rescheduled, I think that that’s a remarkable benefit in some ways for the scientific and medical community because it acknowledges that cannabis does have medical value, which can jumpstart some of those conversations that many clinicians and patients have been hesitant to have,” Boehnke said.
Boehnke says it would ideally also ease some of the burdens of doing studies with cannabis, but it won’t remove one major hurdle.
“It doesn’t make that much of a difference at this point scientifically because if cannabis remains the controlled substance, I, as a scientist, and my colleagues, as scientists, still can’t access the products that are being sold in dispensaries because none of them have gone through the food and drug administration approval process,” Boehnke said.
Boehnke says he and his colleagues have noticed another trend.
In many states where cannabis is not legal, people are increasingly using compounds like Delta-8 THC derived from hemp.
Those are not regulated under the Controlled Substances Act or state marketplaces, so there may be additional concerns about contamination and inaccurate labeling.