Feb. 6, 2025
Dear Health Care Practitioner:
I am pleased to share with you information about a new report, "Chronic Pain Patients in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program," published by the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).
OCM's data and analytics team regularly produces reports based on patient data from the Medical Cannabis Registry. The team's most recent report focuses on chronic pain and the use of medical cannabis to manage patient pain. We wanted to share results with you to bring more attention to the growing scientific knowledge base about the use of medical cannabis to manage pain.
Here are key takeaways:
Pain is the most prominent symptom treated in the Minnesota medical cannabis program. The pain-related medical conditions of patients in the program include chronic pain, intractable pain, cancer with severe pain, terminal illness with severe pain, and sickle cell disease.
This study analyzed data from 9,961 patients enrolled in the state's medical cannabis program with a pain-related condition between March 2, 2022, and Feb. 28, 2023.
Patients enrolled in the state's medical cannabis program are finding a noticeable change in pain relief within four months of receiving medical cannabis.
Among all pain-related conditions, almost one-third (31.7%) of patients experiencing moderate to severe pain at enrollment saw a meaningful reduction in pain symptoms within four months of treatment. Of those patients experiencing a meaningful reduction in pain symptoms, 49.7% of them were able to maintain the pain reduction for an additional four months after achieving it.
For more information about the report, please go to Chronic Pain Patients in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program (PDF).
Thank you for all you do to support medical cannabis patients and Minnesota's medical cannabis program.
Sincerely,
Ilizah Woodward, Director
Division of Medical Cannabis
Office of Cannabis Management
https://cannabis.state.mn.us