Cannabis and cannabis-based products are being studied for a wide range of health problems, but most of the time, not enough research has been done to make strong conclusions.
Cannabinoids are a group of chemicals that are found in large amounts in the cannabis plant. Most studies have not used the whole plant, but rather extracts or cannabinoids made in a lab. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the part of marijuana that makes you feel high, and CBD (cannabidiol), which doesn’t, are being looked at.
There are many ways to take cannabis and cannabinoids. Two common ways are to take it by mouth or breathe it in (smoking or vaping). When medicines are breathed in, they reach the bloodstream much faster. Most studies, though, looked at how these products were taken by mouth.
The best evidence scientists have comes from studies of people with long-term pain. Cannabinoids and some types of marijuana can help with certain kinds of pain. But so far, most studies have only looked at short-term effects and not long-term ones.
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Approved and tested cannabinoid medicines are very different from cannabis dispensary products or other over-the-counter medicines. These products might have different amounts of the parts of cannabis that make them work, or they might have other contaminants. Scientists think that the link between vaping THC and lung disease is probably caused by a thickening agent called vitamin E acetate and not the THC itself. Check out CBN FOR SALE here.
Cannabis and cannabinoids are being studied in many ways to treat a wide range of symptoms and conditions, such as:
- Pain that comes and goes
- Epilepsy
- There are many problems with drug use, such as opioid and cannabis dependence.
- Cancer and the signs of it
- Signs of multiple sclerosis
- Schizophrenia and psychosis are two types of mental illness.
- Alzheimer’s disease and dementia both have symptoms.
- PTSD
- Graft-versus-host disease in people who have had organ transplants
Cannabis has both short-term and long-term benefits and risks that need to be studied more.
Even though the FDA has approved some cannabinoids and one medicine made from cannabis, U.S. law considers cannabis to be a drug with no currently accepted medical use, a high potential for abuse, and a lack of safety when used under medical supervision. Laws make it hard to study these drugs. For now, scientists can only use cannabis from the government, which may be different from cannabis grown elsewhere.
Whole-plant cannabis is more complicated than most other medicines. Different types of cannabis, called “strains” or “chemovars,” may have different amounts of these chemicals. Also, the chemicals have different effects depending on whether you breathe them in or eat them.
One reason it’s hard to do research in this area is that people can get cannabis on their own, so drug companies don’t have much reason to spend millions of dollars making a drug that works like cannabis. It might be hard for traditional drug companies to make money off of medicines made from cannabis.