[420 Girl]

A new study entitled Marijuana Effectiveness as an HIV Self-Care Strategy, which was released this past weekend in Clinical Nursing Research, indicates that persons living with HIV/AIDS rate cannabis as more effective in treating the symptoms of anxiety, depression, fatigue, diarrhea, and neuropathy than other prescription and over the counter medications.

The study, which was conducted over a two year period and included 775 patients from the USA, Africa, and Puerto Rico, assessed the use of cannabis as a symptom management approach for anxiety, depression, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and peripheral neuropathy. 27% of survey participants reported using cannabis for medicinal purposes. Researchers wrote that cannabis use “was rated slightly more effective than antidepressants for anxiety and depression, Imodium for diarrhea, [over the counter] (OTC) medications for fatigue, and anti-epileptics and OTC medications for neuropathy” while cannabis was rated “slightly less effective for nausea than either prescribed or OTC medications.” Authors concluded that cannabis “is perceived by users as at least as effective as prescribed medications in symptom management.”

This survey supports the findings of previous clinical trials regarding medical cannabis’s efficacy in treating HIV/AIDS related symptoms. The first such trial, a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial, was conducted in February 2007 and demonstrated that smoked cannabis can relieve HIV related peripheral neuropathy. Two subsequent studies have further confirmed this finding, including a trial at UC Davis that found that even low doses of smoked cannabis can be effective in managing hard to treat neuropathic pain and in a separate trial at UCSF, which reported efficacy in short term treatment of HIV neuropathy.

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