Medical marijuana is said to relieve anxiety, alleviate pain, prevent epileptic seizures and increase appetite for some patients, but many Colorado family physicians lean against recommending the drug.

Forty-six percent of Colorado family physicians say they do not support doctors recommending medical marijuana. Nearly all of them cite a lack of information about the drug.

These were among the findings of a study published in February in The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Researchers Elin Kondrad, a family physician, and Alfred Reid

sent an online survey to 1,727 members of the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians in 2011 and received 520 responses. The survey asked the physicians about their attitudes toward medical marijuana.

Nineteen percent of the physicians who responded said doctors should recommend medical marijuana to patients. Thirty-five percent said they needed more information or were undecided.

“I don’t think physicians have a bias against marijuana,” said Robert Brockmann, president of the academy. “I think there is a bias against lack of information.”

Brockmann, a family physician, said he has never recommended medical marijuana to a patient.

“What the study shows is most physicians know the risk and benefits are not clear,” Brockmann said.

More than 60 percent of the physicians agreed there were significant physical and mental-health risks with marijuana use, the study says.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, more than 108,000 people in the state have valid medical-marijuana cards; 57 percent reside in the Denver-metro area. A physician must certify that a patient has at least one debilitating condition for a person to be eligible for medical marijuana.

Severe pain is the most cited out of eight debilitating conditions reported on applications, according to the health department. Kondrad described the severe-pain category as ambiguous.

“What surprised me the most is family physicians recommend medical marijuana for different reasons,” Kondrad said. “Over 50 percent of physicians recommend it to patients for cancer and other reasons.”

Physicians can’t prescribe the dose, choose the kind of marijuana or monitor their patients’ use of it the way they can with other drugs, Brockmann said.

“Physicians have a lot less control of what the patient is getting,” Kondrad said. “As physicians, we’re used to specific dosing and knowing side effects.”

According to the study, 92 percent of physicians said doctors should have ongoing relationships with patients for whom they recommend medical marijuana.

Floyd Russak, a family physician, said he certifies medical- marijuana applications only for his current patients; his office doesn’t accept walk-ins seeking marijuana cards.

“When all else fails, I’m writing it to give it a try,” Russak said. “Out of those who have been recommended it, some have really improved.”

Adrian Garcia: 303-954-1729, agarcia@denverpost.com twitter.com/adriandgarcia