A UCSD study suggests that smoking moderate doses of
marijuana helps to alleviate pain. However, researchers also found that smoking
large amounts might increase pain.
Researchers employed a group of 15 healthy people to smoke
low, moderate and high doses of marijuana. Capsaicin, the spicy chemical found
in chili peppers, was then injected into the participants to induce pain.
Pain was significantly reduced 45 minutes after smoking a
moderate dose, while subjects who smoked a larger dose during the same time frame
reported feeling more pain.
“This is the first study using different doses of cannabis
and a tightly controlled pain stimulus that suggests that cannabis has a
therapeutic window of pain relief,” researcher Mark S. Wallace, director of the
Center for Clinical Pain Research, said in a press release.
