Great addition to cannabis medicines

Cannabis medications for pain therapy

05/11/2014

Cannabis has also been used as a medicine in Germany for years. But it is not so easy for medical professionals to relieve their patients' pain with such medicines. A doctor talks about the reasons why cannabis medicines are so rarely used.

Cannabis as a medicine
For years, cannabis has also been used as a medicine in Germany. Among other things, it helps with nausea and vomiting or with cachexia, a disease in which it comes through extreme emaciation to extreme underweight. In addition, cannabis has an analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect and can help severely ill patients to endure their suffering better. So also the German patients who were recently allowed by a court ruling to grow hemp for their own use. Consuming the drug helps these men, who are struggling with chronic pain, multiple sclerosis (MS) or attention deficit syndrome (ADHD), to better cope with their condition.

„Well tolerated substance“
However, it is often not easy for medical professionals to relieve the pain of their patients with the cannabis plant's active ingredient. In an interview with the news agency dpa, the Wiesbaden doctor Dr. Thomas Nolte on the problems that arise. According to the expert, drugs are made from cannabis „An effective, well-tolerated substance and an enrichment in the spectrum of a pain therapist and palliative care.“ Nevertheless, dronabinol, as the receptor substance, which is made of the cannabis drug THC, is commercially available, barely prescribed. Dr. Nolte explains the background.

Cannabis as a tablet or oily substance
When asked what medications are available to pain patients and the dying, the doctor said that there are naturally occurring cannabinoids, „which are planted in nature and are also used in medicine“. As the 59-year-old specialist in anesthesiology further said, doctors prescribe semisynthetic cannabinoids such as dronabinol. The active ingredient is the same, but the dosage form is different. So you can smoke cannabis or process it as a powder. However, in the medical field it is administered as a tablet or oily substance Nolte.

Extremely rare application
However, the application is extremely rare. He told dpa that he had this active ingredient „maybe one in 200 pain patients a week“ prescribe. The prescription of such drugs is not for everyone but limited to certain groups of patients, such as multiple sclerosis, severe tumor pain or spasticity. According to the physician, the advantages lie in good tolerability, even in long-term use. According to him, due to the special mechanism of action effects can be achieved that can not be achieved with other drugs.

Costs are rarely taken over by the funds
Dr. Nolte went on to explain why, despite the positive effects, the drugs are rarely used. Accordingly, the access is extremely limited. „It has to be prescribed via a narcotic prescription and the health insurances only cover the costs in rare cases“, so the doctor. He said that from his point of view, it is incomprehensible that dronabinol has a different status. Like Dr. Nolte said there is no reason that the well-tolerated substance can not be as well disposed as opioids, anticonvulsants or antidepressants. (Ad)