高清福利片

The first of Australia鈥檚 medicinal cannabis program, which began in 2016, shows the drug is being increasingly prescribed for various conditions. Since the beginning of the program, medicinal cannabis has been prescribed for over 140 conditions.

The study, led by the University of Sydney鈥檚 Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics, found anxiety was among the top three reasons for a medicinal cannabis prescription. This is despite a limited number of high-quality clinical trials investigating the drug鈥檚 efficacy for this condition.

The findings were published today in Frontiers in Pharmacology.

Flower-based cannabis products containing THC (the ingredient that makes you 鈥榟igh鈥�) were being prescribed for anxiety, particularly to males aged 31 or younger.

However senior author Dr Elizabeth Cairns said 聽the current evidence base for medicinal cannabis for anxiety is limited to only a few studies investigating CBD-dominant products, rather than THC-containing products

鈥淗istorically, the effects of THC have been as anxiety-inducing, although this may depend on dose size and other factors.鈥�

Using data from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) 鈥� Australia's Special Access Scheme B, the researchers found the other two top reasons for prescriptions were pain and sleep disorders.

The evidence of effectiveness for medicinal cannabis in the treatment of pain is , at least in Australia, where the Australian Faculty of Pain Medicine not to prescribe medicinal cannabis for this purpose. have also been done examining cannabis for the treatment of sleep disorders.

高清福利片 co-author and medicinal cannabis prescriber in her capacity as a GP, Associate Professor Vicki Kotsirilos AM from Western Sydney University, says the top reasons for prescriptions didn鈥檛 surprise her.

鈥淧ain, anxiety and sleep issues are often interconnected 鈥� chronic pain can also cause mental health and sleep issues.鈥�

Although Associate Professor Kotsirilos prescribes medicinal cannabis for pain, she says this should only be done as a last resort, after more evidence based behavioural and drug therapies, such as counselling, exercise and deep breathing for pain, anxiety and/or sleep disorders, have failed or are of limited clinical benefit.聽

Sydney-based writer Rocky, 31, embodies this process. She exhausted her other medical options and tried self-medicating with cannabis before turning to medicinal cannabis over two years ago. She also suffers from endometriosis, which in turn caused her depression and anxiety.

鈥淢edicinal cannabis has been so effective I don鈥檛 even think about other therapies,鈥� Rocky said. 鈥淣ow, I am able to function completely normally.鈥�

The top reasons for prescriptions surprised the researchers as did the finding that medicinal cannabis prescriptions have increased聽significantly since 2020 鈥� over 85 percent of total prescriptions to date have been given since January 2020. The researchers are currently unable to say whether the rise was pandemic related.

A similarly inexplicable finding was the fact that Queensland prescribers were responsible for over half of prescriptions nationally, which far outpaced per capita prescribing in other states.

The TGA鈥檚 extensive medicinal cannabis dataset, which includes 248,000 approved scripts, is the only one of its kind globally. No other country has monitored prescriptions in this way since the inceptions of their medicinal cannabis programs.

The size of the dataset allowed the researchers to find prescribing patterns in small, but significant, populations that otherwise might have been overlooked.

鈥淎part from the link between anxiety and flower products, we found other interesting associations, for example, prescriptions of topical CBD for convulsions,鈥� Dr Cairns said.

鈥淭his usage has not been extensively explored.鈥�

The authors note, however, that the data doesn鈥檛 include patient outcomes.

Dr Cairns said: 鈥淯nfortunately, we just don鈥檛 know if these treatments were effective for these patients, but this data highlights where we can focus our attention next - to do focused studies and/or clinical trials.鈥�

鈥淭here is a clear, unmet need for effective drug treatments across a variety of conditions that may be being helped with medicinal cannabis. For example, it could be worth conducting high-quality clinical trials on the use of flower products for anxiety, and that is certainly something that the Lambert Initiative and its collaborators may look to do in future.鈥�

Dr Cairns notes that the Lambert Initiative recently completed trials using (in partnership with Orygen), and with (in partnership with the Woolcock Institute, and led by Lambert Initiative Research Fellow Anastasia Suraev).

Declaration: This study was funded by the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics. One study author owns Cannabis Consulting Australia but receives no financial or commercial benefit from the results of this study.

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