Outcomes Mandate National Integration With Cannabis as Medicine

Medical cannabis has been legal in parts of the USA since 1996, with the stated intention of reducing pain (both acute and chronic) as well as for treatment of multiple other conditions. The original implementation of medical cannabis in the USA was implemented in California as a compassionate measure to treat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Additional studies have shown promising outcome for patients with multiple sclerosis, seizures, cancer, and other chronic conditions. However, there have been few comprehensive studies that have actually measured whether cannabis is an effective treatment for pain reduction. There is an absence of multistate, multicenter clinical studies with cannabis as medicine, not only in the USA but globally. With the expansion of medical cannabis into more than 38 states in the US, this type of clinical study is now feasible.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally characterized coronavirus, COVID-19, as a global pandemic and health systems globally are continuing their efforts to manage the outbreak. Coronavirus disease COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. With the rapidly growing pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the new and challenging to treat zoonotic SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, there is an urgent need for new therapies and prevention strategies that can help curtail disease spread and reduce mortality. Inhibition of viral entry and thereby spread constitute plausible therapeutic avenues.

This study will utilize an anonymous novel online questionnaire to determine study participants' qualifying condition(s) for medical cannabis use, cannabis ingestion method, frequency of use, prescription drug use, and demographic information. Secondary factors will include evaluation of pain control, quality of life metrics, any adverse side effects from cannabis use, as well as changes in adjunctive treatments. Patients will be given medical cannabis recommendations and certifications commensurate with the state law in which the encounter occurs. The variations in mechanisms between the states for recommending, registering, certifying, and developing mandated treatment plans or doses will be adhered to; however, variations in state law and cannabis programs should not cause variation in the study design because the end-result is still the same with patients being treated with medical cannabis.