Publication Highlights

The authors used baseline data from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre's longitudinal study of outcomes for patients prescribed opioids for non-chronic cancer pain to determine the use of cannabis among this population. 1,500 Australians are taking part in the study and of these one in six are using cannabis. Those who used cannabis in addition to opioids reported greater pain relief than those using opioids alone.

Past-year cannabis use in the cohort was more than three times higher than in the general population – 13 per cent of the sample had used cannabis in the past year, compared with only 4.7 per cent of the general population aged over 40 years. One in six had ever used cannabis for pain relief (16%), and a quarter (23%) reported that they would use cannabis for pain if they had access to it.

Those in the cohort who had used cannabis for pain were younger than those who used prescription opioids only (average age of 49 compared with 59 for non-users), were more likely to report more severe pain, had been living with pain for longer and reported that their pain interfered with their lives to a greater extent. They were also more likely to have a history of substance use disorders and mental health problems.

The Pain and Opioids In Treatment Study (POINT) is funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. It is the first Australian study to examine the patterns of prescribing for individual patients, and the outcomes for these patients in the longer term.