The percentage of adults over the age of 65 who said they’d used some form of cannabis in the past year was 75 percent higher in 2018 — when 4.2 percent said they’d used it — than it was in 2015, according to new data published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Cannabis use in this group has been increasing dramatically since around 2006 when less than 0.5 percent of older adults said they’d used the drug.
This review is one of a series on drugs used to treat chronic neuropathic pain. Estimates of the population prevalence of chronic pain with neuropathic components range between 6% and 10%. Current pharmacological treatment options for neuropathic pain afford substantial benefit for only a few people, often with adverse effects that outweigh the benefits. There is a need to explore other treatment options, with different mechanisms of action for treatment of conditions with chronic neuropathic pain. The potential benefits of cannabis-based medicine (herbal cannabis, plant-derived or synthetic THC, THC/CBD oromucosal spray) in chronic neuropathic pain might be outweighed by their potential harms.