How Cannabis May Help Arthritis, Leafly Article

Leafly is often ranked as the most-visited marijuana website in the world.  Leafly contains a vast garden of medical marijuana information, including comprehensive details on strains, dispensaries and locations, news and culture, consumer feedback, and much more.

Two days ago Leafly posted a detailed article on Cannabis and Arthritis. Below are some excerpts in italics.

They discuss seven main forms of arthritis:

1. Inflammatory arthritis — joints become inflamed for no apparent reason.
2. Degenerative or mechanical arthritis — the body tries remodeling the bone to restore stability. Osteoarthritis is an example.
3. Soft tissue musculoskeletal pain — pain felt in tissues rather than joints or bones, affecting overused body parts. For example, “tennis elbow.”
4. Back pain — unspecified pain associated with muscles, discs, nerves, ligaments, bones, or joints in the back such as osteoporosis.
5. Connective tissue disease — pain in tendons, ligaments, and cartilage characterized by inflammation of the skin, muscles, lungs, and kidneys.
6. Infectious arthritis — inflammation in a joint caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi (examples of causes include food poisoning, STDs, and Hepatitis C). Antibiotics can usually treat it.
7. Metabolic arthritis — too much uric acid may form sharp crystals in a joint that cause sudden, excruciating pain. Gout is an example.

They also discuss some research that favors using medical marijuana to help arthritis.

In the summer of 2015, the Canadian Arthritis Society funded a three-year research grant to a Dalhousie University researcher to determine if marijuana can relieve pain or repair arthritic joints. Pain-detecting nerves are filled with cannabinoid receptors, and according to researcher Jason McDougall, cannabinoids control the firing of pain signals from the joint to the brain by sticking themselves to nerve receptors. Another controlled study, conducted by the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Disease in the UK, showed that cannabinoids provided statistically significant improvements in pain on movement, pain at rest, and quality of sleep.

At a time when opiate abuse has reached epidemic proportions, cannabis treatment can be a far less harmful and less addictive way to treat those suffering from chronic pain associated with arthritis. According to Mike Hart, MD, head physician of the Ontario Chapter at Marijuana for Trauma (MFT):

“Cannabis is much more effective and safer long term solution than opioids. The science is clear and demonstrates that cannabis is far safer than opioids. In fact, it’s not even close. Opioids have killed more people than all illegal drugs combined, while cannabis has never killed a single person.”

Not only is cannabis an effective alternative treatment to NSAIDs or opiates, it can help people get off dangerous drugs such as opioids. According to Dr. Hart, “I have literally helped hundreds of patients reduce or eliminate their dependence on opioids.”

Read more of Cannabis & Arthritis, by Jeremy Kosson, Leafly

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