Cannabis for pain

[sallygrain]

Hi can anyone here tell me about their experiences with cannabis for pain. Whether the oil or the resin itself Where they obtained it and how effective. I have a friend with uncontrollable pain from trapped nerve and I offered to investigate for her

[Hidden]

Not sure how many replies you’re going to get purely due to the illegality of obtaining it...the only places I know to get any kind of cannabis is either from someone you know who already partakes, or from a street dealer. I haven’t done any in about 18 years, and I no longer personally know anyone that does, but I doubt the situation has changed much seeing as it’s still a criminal offence and cannabis is a class B substance. Although more often than not for a first offence you’ll get an on the spot £90 fine and a warning for small quantities these days, the maximum penalty for possession is still 5 years in jail, and if you were to share drugs free of charge with a friend, that’s technically viewed as supplying which carries a maximum penalty of up to 14 years depending on several factors including quantities and criminal record. For all the consensus (and popular) opinion on the drug has changed significantly, and science is increasingly beginning to acknowledge there may be medicinal benefit in some circumstances, the law still says that it’s very definitely illegal. I wasn’t using it for pain relief back then, but I can tell you I didn’t get on with it very well: despite trying several different strains and methods of ingestion, it just didn’t suit me as a substance at all. After lots of research I tried high strength CBD oil for pain relief for a month a couple of years back, and although a legitimate product bought via a registered shop, and containing no more than the U.K. legal limit of THC in it, I found it gave me the same vague, overly chilled and uncomfortably spacey feeling I used to get back in the day, so wasn’t too unhappy when I got practically zero pain relief and could give it up as a bad job.

[Picasso8 in reply to Hidden]

Hi I Have RA, I am currently working my way through the strengths of the oil - have gone from the 500 mg right up to 12000 mg All it has done is give me some sleep at night. I have had no pain relief whats so ever which is disappointing as conventional RA drugs no longer work for me and would love to find something that works. It’s been an expensive experiment.

[Hidden in reply to Picasso8]

It was for me, too. As I said in my reply, I wasn’t too unhappy it didn’t work because of how it made me feel, but that’s not to say I wasn’t disappointed it did nothing for the pain. I had to save in the first place to try it for a month (because the advice is you need to give it time to work) but I wouldn’t have been able to have afforded it longer term in any event.

[allanah]

Only tried the oils . But dudnt work for me x

[helixhelix]

Put CBD oil in search box top right and you’ll get previous posts on this.

[Brushwork]

The substance we can legally take it CBD oil or paste, and I assume this is what you mean.

I have tried both and because the quantity of active and effective pain relieving components is strictly legally limited, it doesn't help, or at least it didn't help me.

[sallygrain]

Thankyou all. I asked as a recent Times article made ref to what will be a cannabis card carried by those who use it for medical purposes but without prescription so that the police don’t have to pursue prosecution. They acknowledge they don’t have time or inclination to do so. I have positive experiences of biscuits with tiny amounts allowing my mother to walk again when she has such severe curvature of the spine from arthritis that she was immobile. It loosened her up and didn’t have more than a slight effect on talkativeness!? I am anted to understand whether the strongest oil was any good or whether I had to pursuer the other route !!! Thanks again

[Hidden in reply to sallygrain]

The most recent research suggests that the pain relieving benefit from cannabis is via the psychotropic compounds - the bits involved in getting you ‘high’ - rather than CBD, which is supported by all the recent cannabis based meds that have some pain reducing effect, even if the effect is mostly unintentional e.g. sativex for MS, which was designed to reduce muscle spasticity but does help quite a lot of people with pain as well. Anecdotally, the people that seem to benefit most from CBD oil are those where there’s a lot of musculoskeletal pain, and one of the theories behind that is that the relaxant properties that CBD has (which is the bit that I don’t like but that most people using CBD report experiencing) reduces msk tension and posture issues, thus reducing pain that way rather than any systemic effect that would be of benefit to those with high levels and/or intractable pain stemming from chronic health conditions and inflammation. I belong to 3 forums here, and whenever the issue of CBD comes up, I have yet to encounter anyone that has found decent benefit from CBD for pain stemming from a systemic source. A lot of people considering it are also unaware that there is a size-dependent dosing principle, which means that for many people - myself included, and I’m not a big bloke by any stretch at 5”7 and 11st - to take a therapeutic dose of a legitimate product is an expensive endeavour. Even if it had done anything for me, at around £20 per 4 days, the cost would have been incredibly prohibitive in the longer term. I had to save up for ages to be able to fund a month, but I was in the middle of a prolonged flare and repeatedly being told there was nothing wrong with me: amazing what you can do when desperate enough.

The cannabis card for medical use is good in theory, but my understanding is that it would still require a change in the law. One of the reasons I think it hasn’t happened so far is that it would be a system open to abuse, with a market forming for forgeries and fakes to allow people to avoid prosecution. What happens then, and we see it with people claiming disability benefits, is the fraudulent minority routinely make headline news and the court of public opinion determine that all people in that group are therefore fakers and scum. I believe I’m right in saying that California (and a couple of other states) initially introduced a medical prescription model, meaning you had to get a doctor to sign off on you having it, but doctors in the U.K. are not going to want or be willing to do that without some serious medical trials that as yet still aren’t taking place. The only way I can personally see access to whole cannabis for medical use any time soon is via decriminalisation, but that may well be a long way off, and whilst I’m not against it, I think some people are too quick to dismiss that cannabis is not without its issues.

[sallygrain in reply to Hidden]

Thank you.Charlie for your thoughtful and very useful measured response. I am grateful. Sally