“There is increasing debate about cannabis use for medical purposes, including for symptomatic treatment of chronic pain. We investigated patterns and correlates of cannabis use in a large community sample of people who had been prescribed opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.
Cannabis use for pain relief purposes appears common among people living with chronic non-cancer pain, and users report greater pain relief in combination with opioids than when opioids are used alone.”
“The field of pain medicine is at a crossroads given the epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths from prescription opioids. Cannabis and its active ingredients, cannabinoids, are a much safer therapeutic option.
Despite being slowed by legal restrictions and stigma, research continues to show that when used appropriately, cannabis is safe and effective for many forms of chronic pain and other conditions, and has no overdose levels.
Current literature indicates many chronic pain patients could be treated with cannabis alone or with lower doses of opioids.
To make progress, cannabis needs to be re-branded as a legitimate medicine and rescheduled to a more pharmacologically justifiable class of compounds.
This paper discusses the data supporting re-branding and rescheduling of cannabis.”
“Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the major immune-mediated, demyelinating, neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system.
Compounds within cannabis, notably Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) can limit the inappropriate neurotransmissions that cause MS-related problems and medicinal cannabis is now licenced for the treatment of MS symptoms.
However, the biology indicates that the endocannabinoid system may offer the potential to control other aspects of disease.
… we and others can experimentally demonstrate that they may limit neurodegeneration that drives progressive disability.
Here we show that synthetic cannabidiol can slow down the accumulation of disability from the inflammatory penumbra during relapsing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in ABH mice, possibly via blockade of voltage-gated sodium channels.
In addition, whilst non-sedating doses of Δ9-THC do not inhibit relapsing autoimmunity, they dose-dependently inhibit the accumulation of disability during EAE. They also appear to slow down clinical progression during MS in humans…
… demonstrated a significant slowing of progression by oral Δ9-THC compared to placebo.
Whilst this may support the experimental and biological evidence for a neuroprotective effect by the endocannabinoid system in MS, it remains to be established whether this will be formally demonstrated in further trials of Δ9-THC/cannabis in progressive MS.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25537576
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/experimental-autoimmune-encephalomyelitis/
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/multiple-sclerosis-ms/
“Cannabinoids, psychoactive substances present in cannabis, have been known to mankind for hundreds of years.
Apart from 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) substances found in the cannabis herb with the highest toxicological value are cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN).
The discovery of CB1 and CB2 receptors, located in various tissues (ranging from the brain to peripheral tissues), has defined the potential objective of these new chemical substances’ effects.
Many studies on the application of cannabinoids in the treatment of various diseases such as diabetes, neoplasms, inflammatory diseases, neurological conditions, pain and vomitting were conducted.
Drugs containing e.g. THC appear on the pharmaceutical market.
Substances affecting cannabinoid receptors may show beneficial effects…”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25518584
“The endocannabinoid (eCB) system plays an important role in the control of mood, and its dysregulation has been implicated in several psychiatric disorders.
Targeting the eCB system appears to represent an attractive and novel approach to the treatment of depression and other mood disorders.
…the review provides discussion on compounds and drugs that target this system and might prove to be successful for the treatment of mood-related psychiatric disorders.
The discovery of increasingly selective modulators of CB receptors should enable the identification of optimal therapeutic strategies.
It should also maximize the likelihood of developing safe and effective treatments for debilitating psychiatric disorders.”
“Cannabinoids (CBs) show promise as neuroprotectants with some agents already licensed in humans for other conditions. We systematically reviewed CBs in preclinical stroke to guide further experimental protocols…
Cannabinoids reduced infarct volume in transient and permanent ischemia and in all subclasses: endocannabinoids, CB1/CB2 ligands, CB2 ligands, cannabidiol, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and HU-211. Early and late neuroscores significantly improved with CB use…
Overall, CBs significantly reduced infarct volume and improve functional outcome in experimental stroke.”
“Cannabinoids are a class of chemical compounds with a wide spectrum of pharmacological effects, mediated by two specific plasma membrane receptors (CB1 and CB2).
Recently, CB1 and CB2 expression levels have been detected in human tumors, including those of brain.
Cannabinoids-endocannabinoids exert anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, anti-invasive, anti-metastatic and pro-apoptotic effects in different cancer types, both in vitro and in vivo in animal models, after local or systemic administration.
We present the available experimental and clinical data, to date, regarding the antitumor action of cannabinoids on the tumorigenesis of gliomas.”
“Pain associated with musculoskeletal disorders can be difficult to control and the incorporation of new approaches for its treatment is an interesting challenge.
Activation of cannabinoid (CB) receptors decreases nociceptive transmission in acute, inflammatory and neuropathic pain states…
Our results provide evidence that both, CB 1 and CB 2 receptors can contribute to muscular antinociception and, interestingly, suggest that the local administration of CB agonists could be a new and useful pharmacological strategy in the treatment of muscular pain, avoiding adverse effects induced by systemic administration.”
“Cannabinoid (CB) receptors have emerged as an attractive therapeutic target for pain management in recent years and the interest in the use of cannabinoids is gradually increasing, particularly in patients where conventional treatments fail…
This study suggests that THC could be a future pharmacological option in the treatment of muscle pain.
The local administration of THC could be an interesting option to treat this type of pain avoiding the central adverse effects.”
“Nowadays, Cannabis sativa is considered the most extensively used narcotic. Nevertheless, this fame obscures its traditional employ in native medicine of South Africa, South America, Turkey, Egypt and in many regions of Asia as a therapeutic drug.
In fact, the use of compounds containing Cannabis and their introduction in clinical practice is still controversial and strongly limited by unavoidable psychotropic effects. So, overcoming these adverse effects represents the main open question on the utilization of cannabinoids as new drugs for treatment of several pathologies.
To date, therapeutic use of cannabinoid extracts is prescribed in patients with glaucoma, in the control of chemotherapy-related vomiting and nausea, for appetite stimulation in patients with anorexia-cachexia syndrome by HIV, and for the treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms.
Recently, researcher efforts are aimed to employ the therapeutic potentials of Cannabis sativa in the modulation of cannabinoid receptor activity within the central nervous system, particularly for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as psychiatric and non-psychiatric disorders.
This review evaluates the most recent available data on cannabinoids utilization in experimental and clinical studies, and highlights their beneficial effects in the prevention of the main neurological diseases and for the clinical treatment of symptoms with them correlated.”