“Patients with serious illness often have pain, uncontrolled symptoms, and poor quality of life. Evidence continues to evolve regarding the role of cannabis to treat chronic pain, nausea, and anorexia. Little is known about how patients with serious illness perceive its benefits and harms. Given that an increasing number of clinicians across the United States are treating patients with medical cannabis, it is important for providers to understand patient beliefs about this modality. We assessed patient perceptions of benefits and harms of cannabis who obtained a medical cannabis card within an ambulatory palliative care (APC) practice.
Results: All 101 patients invited to participate completed the survey. A majority had cancer (76%) and were married (61%), disabled or retired (75%), older than 50 years of age (64%), and men (56%). Most patients ingested (61%) or vaporized (49%) cannabis products. A majority of respondents perceived cannabis to be important for their pain (96%) management. They reported that side effects were minimally bothersome, and drowsiness was the most commonly reported bothersome harm (28%). A minority of patients reported cannabis withdrawal symptoms (19%) and concerns for dependency (14%). The majority of patients were using concurrent prescription opioids (65%). Furthermore, a majority of cancer patients reported cannabis as being important for cancer cure (59%).
Conclusion: Patients living with serious illnesses who use cannabis in the context of a multidisciplinary APC practice use cannabis for curative intent and for pain and symptom control. Patients reported improved pain, other symptoms, and a sense of well-being with few reported harms.”
“Globally, chronic pain is a major therapeutic challenge and affects more than 15% of the population. As patients with painful terminal diseases may face unbearable pain, there is a need for more potent analgesics.
“Colchicine-resistant familial Mediterranean fever can be treated by anti-IL-1 biologic therapy; however, such treatment needs approval by the health insurance company, and many patients are denied such treatment or do not respond to it.
“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a potentially debilitating mental health problem.
“Medical and recreational cannabis use is increasing significantly, but its impacts on oral health remains unclear.
“Cannabidiol (CBD) oils are low tetrahydrocannabinol products derived from 
“Among the assisted reproductive techniques, the in vitro maturation of oocytes (IVM) is less developed than other techniques, but its implementation would entail a qualitative advance.
“The prior medical literature offers little guidance as to how pain relief and side effect manifestation may vary across commonly used and commercially available cannabis product types. We used the largest dataset in the United States of real-time responses to and side effect reporting from patient-directed cannabis consumption sessions for the treatment of pain under naturalistic conditions in order to identify how cannabis affects momentary pain intensity levels and which product characteristics are the best predictors of therapeutic pain relief.
“Marijuana has been used by many different civilizations for numerous different purposes, including its use for medical indications. Recently, there has been significant media coverage of the efficacy of medical marijuana in the treatment of seizures in children with Dravet syndrome, and this has led many to search for other possible pediatric indications for cannabinoids, including many different indications in pediatric cancer. However, there is very little evidence on safety or efficacy of cannabinoids in children being treated with cancer. This commentary accompanies a recent paper by a group in Israel who have published their experience of medical marijuana in 50 children and adolescents with cancer, showing excellent satisfaction and better symptom control, and without significant adverse drug reactions. This study from Israel is an excellent first step, but prospective well-designed trials of medical marijuana in pediatric oncology are urgently needed.”