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Dr. Pippa Hawley, a palliative care specialist and medical director of the provincial pain and symptom management program at B.C. Cancer, will lead the trial. She’s been providing authorizations for medical cannabis to patients for many years.

In an interview, Hawley said Canada’s legalization of marijuana paved the way for the study that should help answer whether patients’ anecdotal reports of benefits are justified by the evidence.

“My goal is to be able to provide a useful guide to patients and health care professionals,” said Hawley. “I want to be able to give them practical information about what could work.”

Prior to designing the trial methodology, Hawley and her collaborators circulated a survey to 3,000 patients who saw a cancer specialist at any one of the agency’s clinics across B.C. on a single day last summer. Patients were asked if they were using cannabis for symptom relief and if they had ever used cannabis. Eight hundred patients responded to the survey; a quarter said they were currently using cannabis products for cancer-related symptom control and another quarter said they had used it in the past, mostly for recreational purposes.

Photo by Arlen Redekop / PNG

“That showed that cannabis use during treatment is widespread, for potential relief of symptoms related to treatment, or to cancer itself. This, in spite of the fact there is little or no scientific evidence into symptom and quality of life improvements,” she said, adding that evidence is urgently needed to advise patients on which products might help and which ones to avoid.