Medical use of cannabis
An integrative literature review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14528/snr.2021.55.4.3063Keywords:
cannabis, medical use, treatmentAbstract
Introduction: In 2017, cannabis was approved for medical use in Slovenia. Cannabis has more than 140 compounds of which the most important are cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol because of their healing powers. The aim of review is to investigate the medical use of cannabis.
Methods: An integrative literature review was conducted in the PubMed digital database, the online search engine Google Scholar and the COBISS bibliographic system. Keywords used in the search were: "marihuana AND medical use", "cannabis AND medical use" and "raba konoplje v medicinske namene". The limitations of the search were the period of publication of the literature (2008–2019), free access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and the English or Slovenian language. A thematic analysis of the material was used to review the literature.
Results: 29 articles were selected for the final analysis. 52 codes were identified, grouped into 4 categories: (1) treatment with cannabis, (2) properties of cannabis, (3) effects of cannabidiol, (4) effects of tetrahydrocannabinol.
Discussion and conclusion: Cannabis has been used for medical purposes for several thousand years. Today, it is mainly used for the treatment of the following medical conditions: asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's dementia and multiple sclerosis. In Slovenia, cannabis has been removed from the list of most dangerous drugs, however, the path to being approved for the use for medical purposes will be challenging.
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