According to a new study, described as “the largest study of its kind,” cannabis users using the drug to soothe symptoms of nausea found relief in as quickly as five minutes—but they also found that users smoking joints of cannabis flower achieved more relief, and more quickly, than someone using a vaporizer or using edibles.
As part of the study, which was published in April in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, researchers at the University of New Mexico have been tracking via an app cannabis users’ habits: symptoms, cannabis product selections, and subsequent experience of relief or no relief.
The study had analyzed “2220 cannabis self-administration sessions” from 886 users seeking relief from nausea between June 6, 2016 and July 8, 2019.
Users had reported what products they were using, what symptoms they were trying to alleviate, and then tracked how the cannabis product affected their symptoms in real time.
The researchers found that products with higher THC content were more effective than products high in CBD. Users of cannabis products high in CBD achieved on average less symptom relief.
Jacob Vigil, an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico and a study co0-author told the school’s news website, “perhaps our most surprising result was that THC, typically associated with recreational use, seemed to improve treatment among consumers of Cannabis flower, while our CBD, more commonly associated with medical use, actually seemed to be associated with less symptom relief.”
The researchers also found that flower products labeled sativa or hybrid “outperformed” products labeled indica. And “In sessions using flower, higher tetrahydrocannbinol and lower cannabidiol were generally associated with greater symptom relief (eg, within 5 min).”
THC’s long-term effects on “high-risk populations,” including pregnant women and children, who may be compelled to use cannabis, creates “concerns,” said study coauthor Dr. Sarah Stith, an assistant professor of economics at the University of New Mexico and the lead study author.
