Mary Jane Medication: THC in Pill Form Better for Pain Relief Than Smoking Weed

A new study suggests that a pill containing THC may be safer and carry more benefits for easing pain. Not only that, but relief from pills may last long. However, some may not get that high feeling that is commonly associated with smoking the drug.

Medical marijuana is now legal in 18 states and the District of Columbia, according to the nonprofit group ProCon.org., and surveys show that pain is one of the main reasons that doctors prescribe it. 

To find out exactly how pain is lessened with the drug, researchers from the Substance Use Research Center of the New York State Psychiatric Institute pitted two strengths of smoked marijuana against two strains of the drug dronabionol, which contains tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the same active ingredient as in marijuana plants.

Dronabinol is commonly used to treat nausea and loss of appetite that may afflict patients with cancer and AIDS, and was approved by the FDA in 1985.

Thirty healthy men and women who regularly smoked marijuana were recruited for the study. Participants were instructed to take a capsule and then smoke a marijuana cigarette 45 minutes later during five experimental sessions. The capsules contained either an inactive placebo, or 10 milligrams or 20 milligrams of dronabinol. The cigarettes were specially made by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study. Cigarettes were standardized to contain marijuana with no THC, a low dose of the drug or a higher dose.

People in the study never knew whether they were smoking or swallowing the drug or how strong the dose was. The testing days were spaced at least two days apart, and participants were asked to refrain from smoking the night before their lab visits.

Several times during the sessions, researchers had each person place their hands in a water bath kept just above freezing temperatures. They measured how long it took study participants to feel pain and then how long they were able to tolerate the pain before they yanked their hand out of the water. Participants also answered questions about how intensely they felt the pain during the experiments and how high they felt.

Researchers determined through the study that both methods were about equally affective in controlling pain.

After smoking the strongest cigarettes or taking the highest strength of the pill, it took people an average of about 12 to 13 seconds longer to report feeling pain from the cold water compared to when they took the placebos. Both forms of the drug also significantly increased pain tolerance, the amount of time a person was able to stand the pain before they pulled their hand out of the cold water. Study participants also reported that their pain was decreased after they smoked either strength of marijuana cigarette and after they took the highest strength of the dronabinol capsules.

The biggest differences between the puffs and the pills had to do with how long it took the drug to work and how high people felt after they used it.

Researchers found that pain relief peaked about 15 minutes after people smoked the marijuana and wore off relatively quickly. The pills took longer to work, but the pain relief lasted three to four hours.

Participants also reported feeling much higher after smoking the drug compared to when they swallowed it. The feeling of being high usually outlasted any pain relief.