Medical Cannabis: We’re Using, but It’s Confusing

At the recent多发性硬化症中心的财团会议，在奥兰多举行罗伯特·福克斯（Robert Fox），医学博士, of the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, reported the findings of an interesting survey of people living withmultiple sclerosis(MS).

According to data in the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis (NARCOMS）注册表，约有三分之一（31％）的MS人尝试使用大麻作为症状的治疗方法。

21％的受访者在过去30天内使用了大麻，使其成为“现有用户”。

Legality a Concern for Many

The drug is legal for medical use in only 36 of the 50 states, 4 out of 5 U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Legalitywas stated as a concern for both those who reported using cannabis for their MS as well as for those who did not.

Of the 3,249people with MS谁完成了Narcoms调查，有69％的人没有尝试过大麻MS symptoms, with 25 percent of them stating that legal concerns were the reason they had not tried it.

很少有人寻求医生关于大麻使用的指导

The pointed section of the report for this writer was that while 75 percent of the current users had talked with their healthcare team about cannabis, “nobody/self” was reported by the majority as their primary source of medical guidance.

In other words, they had talked to their physicians about the drug for their MS, but only 23 percent sought medical guidance for the大麻的使用因为他们的MS症状。

The symptoms for which patients tried cannabis most frequently — in a variety of forms and formulations, including smoking the herb, consuming edibles, and using products with varying amounts of THC and cannabidiol — were spasticity, pain, and sleep issues.

Ninety-five percent of respondents who had tried a form of cannabis for those symptoms reported it “very helpful” or “somewhat helpful.”

RELATED:Can Medical Marijuana Ease MS Symptoms?

Price of Cannabis Products Also a Concern

Beyond legal concerns, price also seems to be of concern, with 51 percent of people saying that they used less than they thought optimal due to cost and lack of insurance coverage.

The survey asked about sourcing and found that 62 percent of current users used medical dispensaries to obtain cannabis products, while 18 percent used friends and family contacts, and another 13 percent used “acquaintances.”

Twenty percent of current users reported that they used dispensaries not only as a source for the product but also as their primary source of information and medical guidance.

这张照片怎么了？

我发现令人困惑的是，有很多州允许医生开药大麻，并且很大一部分MS患者报告说，他们已经与他们的初级保健或MS专业医生交谈过大麻，因此很少有人列出那些相同的专业人员他们关于使用大麻的医学指导的主要来源。

Does that mean we don’t feel like our doctors are up to speed on cannabis as anMS therapy？我们是否怀疑他们的意见受到制药行业的影响？

Dr. Fox brought up several interesting points and concerns in his presentation of the data. And if I, as a person with MS and a patient advocate for others with the disease, have these questions, I hope that the medical profession is also asking themselves the same query: “Why are our patients not relying on us for important advice on this topic?”

我想知道他们的答案会是什么……

祝您和您的家人保持健康。

Cheers,

特雷维斯

我的书，Chef Interrupted, is available onAmazon. Follow me on theLife With MS Facebook page和on推特，并了解更多Life With Multiple Sclerosis.