The expansion of the sanctioned use of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes has exploded in recent years and warrants a critical appraisal of the primary care physician’s role in providing advice to and counseling patients.
Understanding the potential reactions that can occur from cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids can help emergency physicians recognize these effects in patients who may present to the emergency department.
The authors of this systematic review investigating the effects of medical cannabis (MC) on chronic pain in adults found that there is limited evidence to support the use of MC in treating neuropathic pain and that there is insufficient evidence that MC improves other types of chronic pain.
Perhaps no topic is more controversial than the use of marijuana in clinical practice. Within the United States, there are an estimated 55 million recent active users, defined as one to two uses within the previous year, and 35 million regular users, defined as one to two uses per month.
For three people with continued pain despite conventional treatment for pyoderma gangrenosum, topical cannabis led to statistically significant pain relief for two of them.
No associations between cannabis use in young adulthood and strokes later in life were found in multivariable models. An almost doubled risk of ischemic stroke was observed in those with cannabis use > 50 times; this risk was attenuated when adjusted for tobacco usage. Smoking ≥ 20 cigarettes per day was clearly associated both with strokes before 45 years of age and with strokes throughout the follow-up.
RSS
