Survey: Pain patients prefer cannabis to opioids

June 29, 2017

A recent survey conducted by cannabis community website HelloMD and University of California Berkeley revealed nearly all respondents said they could reduce their opioid consumption after adding cannabis to their treatment regimen, and a vast majority preferred cannabis to prescription pills.

HelloMD asked nearly 3,000 medical cannabis patients a variety of questions examining the use of cannabis as a substitute for opioid and non-opioid based pain medication. Ninety-seven percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they could decrease their use of opioid pain killers when consuming cannabis, and 92 percent said they agreed or strongly agreed that they prefer cannabis to treat their condition.

Eighty-one percent either agreed or strongly agreed that cannabis treatment alone was more effective than taking cannabis with opioids.

“The treatment of pain has become a politicized business in the United States. The result has been the rapidly rising rate of opioid related overdoses and dependence,” one of the survey’s researchers, Amanda Reiman, told Leafly. “Cannabis has been used throughout the world for thousands of years to treat pain and other physical and mental health conditions.”

“Patients have been telling us for decades that this practice is producing better outcomes than the use of opioid-based medications,” Remain continued. “It’s past time for the medical profession to get over their reefer madness and start working with the medical cannabis movement and industry to slow down the destruction being caused by the over prescribing and overuse of opioids.”