Results from a new survey conducted by oncology nurses at University of California, Los Angeles show cancer patients showed “demonstrable improvements” for people with insomnia and anxiety after using cannabis. The results also show nurses are having no negative experiences in regard to Ryan’s Law, a bill signed in 2021 by California governor Gavin Newsom that allows terminally ill patients who have been authorized to use cannabis under California’s Compassionate Use Act to use their own medical cannabis in a healthcare facility.
Amanda McKaig, BSN-RN, OCN; and Alyssa Ridad, BSN-RN, OCN presented their survey findings at the 48th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Congress reporting how institutions in California have updated their policies in response to the passage of Ryan’s Law. At UCLA, patients are able to bring their own supply of medical cannabis after a doctor determines they meet the criteria for cannabis use. Medical cannabis must be stored in a lockbox and patients are able to self-administer as needed, with an RN documenting each administration. The two nurse investigators found survey respondents said the new protocols helped patients with their insomnia and anxiety, highlighting the value of alternative medicines while in supportive care.
“The main thing that we found very interesting was there have been a lot of studies that [demonstrated that] cannabis can help with chronic pain and especially cancer-related pain, but we found through our survey that nurses felt that it helped patients [handle] with insomnia and anxiety the most,” said McKaig. “There wasn’t a lot of literature to support [that], but that’s what nurses [responded] was most helpful in the inpatient setting for.”
Cannabis has shown to provide numerous benefits for cancer patients, helping reduce pain from cancer treatments and chemotherapy as well as providing relief from cancer itself. Researchers affiliated with the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, and the Medical Cannabis Programme in Oncology at Cedars Cancer Centre in Canada, McGill University and Harvard Medical School found medical cannabis is “a safe and effective complementary treatment for pain relief in patients with cancer.” The researchers found cannabis medicines with a balanced mix of THC and CBD were the most effective at reducing pain for patients and noted a reduction in the number of medicines taken by participants during the study period, concluding that medical cannabis was a safe and effective complementary option for patients.
In addition to helping cancer patients deal with pain, cannabis has also proven effective in helping improve sleep and relieve some of the side effects of chemotherapy like memory loss, according to a study from the University of Colorado at Boulder. For the study, researchers studied 25 cancer patients who used cannabis over two weeks. Researchers drove a mobile lab to each study participant’s home, where they underwent physical and cognitive assessments in the van, then re-tested in the van after using cannabis in their homes. The study found within an hour cannabis had reduced pain significantly and after two weeks of sustained use patients reported improvements in pain, sleep quality and cognitive function.
“We thought we might see some problems with cognitive function,” said Angela Bryan, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder and senior author on the study. Bryan also noted that both cannabis and chemotherapy have been previously associated with impaired thinking. “But people actually felt like they were thinking more clearly. It was a surprise.”
Compared to the general public, cancer survivors are more likely to use cannabis for medical reasons. According to data collected from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual phone-based survey of U.S. residents, 82.23 percent of cancer survivors who use cannabis said they do so for medical purposes, compared to 62.58 percent of cannabis users with no history of cancer.
