If you’ve been following our blog for a while now, you probably know that we’re interested in how cannabis or medical marijuana can be used to help with some chronic pain conditions. Recently, we came across a new study published in the European Journal of Pain that explored how microdosing THC could be used to treat chronic pain. Below, we take a closer look at the findings of that study.

Microdosing For Chronic Pain

Microdosing is the term used to describe the act of taking a subtherapeutic dosage of a drug. More recently, the term has become synonymous with regularly taking small doses of psychedelic drugs like LSD. Some artists and authors say microdosing on these agents can unlock the creativity inside of them, but the study out of Europe wanted to see if microdosing other types of drugs could prove to be a successful treatment option for some health conditions. Considering that cannabis has already been used to treat some types of chronic pain, researchers were interested to see if a THC microdose could offer similar benefits.

The randomized, double-blind study separated 27 patients into three different groups. There were:

• One inhaled microdose of 500 micrograms (0.5mg) of THC
• One inhaled microdose of 1,000 micrograms (1.0mg) of THC
• A placebo group

Participants with neuropathic chronic pain were given the doses on three separate test days and asked about their pain scores throughout the study. Researchers found that both microdose groups experienced some short-term reductions in chronic pain.

“Both doses, but not the placebo, demonstrated a significant reduction in pain intensity compared with baseline and remained stable for 150-minutes,” the researchers wrote in the published study. “The 1-mg dose showed a significant pain decrease compared to the placebo.”

Other findings from the study include:

• No signs of cognitive impairment in either active dose group.
• Reports of a psychoactive “high” sensation were significantly higher in the 1-mg group compared to the 0.5-mg group.
• The 1-mg dose used in the trial is about about 5-10x less than what many consider to be the low-end of a psychoactive dose of THC.

“We can concluded from the study results that low doses of cannabis may provide desirable effects while avoiding cognitive debilitations, significantly contributing to daily functioning, quality of life, and safety of the patient,” says Elon Eisenberg, lead research on the project, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. “The doses given in this study, being so low, mandate very high precision in the treatment modality.”

However, the study did have some limitations. The study was conducted and funded primarily by Syqe Medical, which produces the single microdose inhalers used in the trial, but the study was independently peer-reviewed and published. Also, the trial only involved 27 people, so we’ll need more research on a much larger scale before considering this an option for the right chronic pain patient. That being said, it’s certainly an avenue we’ll be keeping an eye on in the coming months and years!