What patients want from future cannabis research – study
Cannabis Health News

A new paper highlights what UK patients would like to see prioritised as research around cannabis and its therapeutic potential develops. The research around cannabis for medicinal purposes is rapidly expanding, with a record number of papers published in 2021. However, to date the majority of the agendas have been set by the industry or academia, rather than those who have lived-experience of the treatment as a patient or carer. In a first for the field, scientists aimed to tackle this by asking patients directly what they deem to be important areas for further research moving forward.  A team of researchers associated with Sapphire Medical Clinics asked a group of 30 medical cannabis patients undergoing treatment for a range of health conditions to take part in focus groups between December 2021-February 2022.  The outcomes were then used to determine what they thought should be prioritised as the science around the plant and its therapeutic potential develops.  Patients’ priorities for research Patients predominantly wanted to see more research on specific conditions and symptoms, assigning the highest proportion of research funding to ‘assessment of effect on specific symptoms’. Other key themes which were identified were: adverse events, comparison between cannabis-based medicinal products, pharmacology of cannabis, types of study, agriculture and manufacturing.  There was also an emphasis on the need for more research into the social impact of cannabis  such as knowledge of medical cannabis among healthcare professionals, stigma, and effects on driving and in the workplace. Dr Simon Erridge, head of research at Sapphire Clinics and co-author of the study, said he hoped the findings would be useful for government funders, when setting future research agendas. “As we cover in the study there is a real lack of previous attempts to try and characterise what patient priorities are when it comes to…

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