Marijuana Moment
Federal health officials laid out priorities for research into marijuana and cannabinoids in a new report from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) that says the agency and other National Institutes of Health (NIH) components are working to address “the chasm between medical use of cannabis and research that informs safety and efficacy.”
“Use of cannabis for purported medical purposes continues to increase despite insufficient knowledge regarding risks and benefits,” says the 12-page paper, published last month in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. “Research is needed to help health professionals and patients make knowledgeable decisions about using cannabis and cannabinoids for medical purposes.”
Already NCCIH and other agencies within NIH have stepped up study into “the safety, efficacy, and harms,” it notes, “recognizing that cannabis is a complex mixture of phytochemicals that need to be studied both alone and in combination.”
Areas of study include cannabis’s effects on pain, sleep and social anxiety issues, the therapeutic use of terpenes, computer-aided identification of bioactive minor cannabinoids in hemp, chemical synthesis of rare cannabinoids and how exactly the chemical constituents of cannabis interact with the body and brain.
“One issue of particular interest to NCCIH is the potential analgesic properties of cannabis and its constituents,” authors wrote, calling chronic pain “a major public health concern” and noting that delta-9 THC “has demonstrated analgesic properties.”
