The International Association for the Study of Pain states: “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”

Chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute pain and is often resistant to most medical treatments. Chronic pain often causes severe problems for patients.

How Cannabis Can Help Relieve Symptoms

Pain relief is one of medical cannabis’ most well-known benefits. In fact, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association and The New England Journal of Medicine all endorse the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of severe chronic pain.

Cannabis acts as an analgesic, or natural painkiller, in the body’s basic operational system. There is a role for the cannabinoids found in marijuana for the body’s pain and movement receptors. Many areas in the brain that produce our sensing and processing receptors respond to the analgesic effects of cannabis.

Cannabinoids are often successful in treating pain and used as adjunct treatments to opioids. Acting as painkillers and anti-inflammatories, medical cannabis is far less addictive than many other pain-killing medicines.

A common side effect of cannabis is drowsiness, and it can therefore be used as a sleep aid. Cannabis is used for many patients who have difficulty sleeping due to their condition or treatment method. Medicinal marijuana patients experience a more restful sleep and wake up feeling more refreshed.

Medical cannabis is not toxic to major organs like many other sleep aids and has very few side effects. Cannabis causes body temperature to drop by half of a degree.

This allows patients to become more relaxed and stress-free, and to fall asleep faster.