One complication is that certain types of pain are especially susceptible to the placebo response. Research showed a substance designed to mimic cannabis provides similar pain relief to the real thing—meaning cannabis does seem to relieve pain, but part of that relief may come from the placebo effect.
“It’s not enough to know that something is working. We need to know why it is working to best help patients,” says Karin Jensen, a researcher in the pain neuroimaging lab at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, told Landau. Without understanding of how cannabis helps with pain, it’s impossible to know if it’s the best remedy for the patient, she explains.
Cannabis certainly isn’t dangerous in the same way as opioids are, Deborah Hasin, an epidemiologist who has researched cannabis, told Landau in a March 2024 story. Still, Hasin says, it “can have a lot of other consequences to both physical and psychological health.”
Experts want people to be aware of a few things—first, that cannabis strains are much stronger than those you might have had in decades past. Cannabis use can also bring on delusions or paranoia, especially if it’s used daily. Cannabis addiction can develop, and is quite common.