Approximately 40 percent of all Americans will develop cancer at some point in their lifetimes. And with the punishing chemotherapy, fatigue, and nausea that often follows some forms of treatment, nearly a quarter of cancer patients are turning to marijuana to help ease their symptoms, according to a new finding published in Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society.
As marijuana consumption gains acceptance, a growing number of cancer patients are starting to view the drug as a viable way to cope with their disease. Twenty-nine states and District of Columbia have passed regulations that allow various forms of medicinal or recreational marijuana. Yet patients who opt to use cannabis are largely stepping into a grey zone. “Cancer patients are hearing through different channels that it might be a benefit to them but there’s almost no literature, no research to support that,” says lead study author Steven Pergam, a clinical researcher at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
But the researchers didn’t just take patients’ word for this. They also randomly tested patients’ urine samples and found similar percentages of frequent users, based on the presence of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s effects. “This is a large number of patients using marijuana,” Pergam says. However, there could be even more patients who hesitate to talk to their doctors about their marijuana use, he adds, particularly in states where it isn’t legal or as accessible as Washington.
“What’s really interesting is that almost three-quarters of patients really wanted to know more about medical marijuana, and they wanted to get that information from their doctors,” Pergam says. But that wasn’t where patients were getting their information. Most people sought out information from friends, relatives, and non-scientific sources online, according to the survey results.
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