Medical marijuana advocates have known for a long time that cannabis is an effective treatment for their patients who suffer from chronic pain, and recently released scientific studies from UC San Diego's Center for Medical Cannabis Research support this claim with solid evidence. San Jose 420 Evaluations, a medical marijuana dispensary, explains chronic pain and the various recent studies' conclusions about how marijuana helps alleviate its symptoms. Medical marijuana advocates have known for a long time that cannabis is an effective treatment for their patients who suffer from chronic pain, and recently released scientific studies from UC San Diego's Center for Medical Cannabis Research support this claim with solid evidence. San Jose 420 Evaluations, a medical marijuana dispensary, explains chronic pain and the various recent studies' conclusions about how marijuana helps alleviate its symptoms.

Pain, a signal from the nervous system to the brain that alerts it to possible injury, can be very useful. Chronic pain, wherein according to the National Institute for Health, "pain signals keep firing in the nervous system for weeks, months, even years," can cause terrible suffering in people's daily lives. According to the American Pain Foundation, 50 million Americans suffer from persistent pain each year, causing sleep difficulties, absenteeism at work, social effects and other related hardships. According to an article in TIME Magazine, $50 billion is spent on it annually in this country. Chronic pain may result from an injury, come with age, or be associated with other ailments.

The National Pain Foundation explains that the human body contains cannaboid receptors in the brain, spinal cord and immune system. Cannaboids, including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a chemical compound found in marijuana, react with the cannaboid receptors to alleviate symptoms of pain.

Recent controlled studies have demonstrated marijuana's effectiveness on treating chronic pain associated with a number of other diseases. UC San Diego's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research found that, among other things,

Marijuana helps neuropathic pain that is unaffected by aspirin and fairly resistant to opiods.

HIV patients with neuropathic pain showed a 34% reduction in reported pain when they smoked 3 marijuana cigarettes per day, as opposed to 17% in the control group.

Another study found that two groups of patients suffering pain associated with a variety of other ailments experienced a 46% pain decrease when they smoked, compared with 27% in the control group.

Spasms and pain related to Multiple Sclerosis were reduced by 32% and 50%, respectively, compared with 2% and 22% in the control subjects.