An Oxford University study concludes that pain diminishes when people are high on marijuana. The study recruited a dozen healthy male participants. They were given 15-mg THC tablets (or placebo). Pain was induced by rubbing a chili-based cream into the skin, causing a burning, painful sensation.
"We found that with THC, on average people didn't report any change in the burn, but the pain bothered them less," reports Dr. Michael Lee, lead study author from Oxford's Center for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain. "Cannabis does not seem to act like a conventional pain medicine. Some people respond really well, others not at all, or even poorly. Brain imaging (MRI) shows little reduction in the brain regions that code for the sensation of pain, which is what we tend to see with drugs like opiates. Instead, cannabis appears to mainly affect the emotional reaction to pain in a highly variable way."
