Table 1.

Summary of methods

#	Author	Yeara	Countryb	Population	Comparison/control	Pain level outcome assessed	Opioid use outcome assessed	Medical cannabis intervention
Randomized controlled trials
1	Bebee et al.	2021	Australia	Median age: 47 years 100 enrolled	Randomized control group	Numeric pain score (1–10) 2 h post administration	None	Randomized 1:1 intervention of oral dose of CBD or placebo
Prospective cohort studies
2	Haroutounian et al.	2016	Israel	Average age: 51 years 62% men 176 participants	None	S-TOPS questionnaire and Brief Pain Inventory	Milligrams of daily opioid use (6 months post intervention)	Prescribed cannabis dose of 20 g/month as smoked, baked cookies, or olive oil extract drops
Retrospective cohort studies
3	Mondello et al.	2018	Italy	Median age: 61 years 11 failed back surgery syndrome patients	None	Douleur Neuropathique 4 questionnaire and Brief Pain Inventory	None	THC:CBD oleic suspension
4	Takakuwa et al.	2020	USA	Average age: 50 years 61 participants with chronic LBP	2 comparative groups: intermittent opioid users (short-term intermittent and infrequent); and chronic users	None	Prescription opioid use converted to morphine equivalents. Amount of time it took for patients to stop opioids calculated as difference between patient initially treated by cannabis physician and date of visit when patient was no longer taking opioids	1-year medical cannabis approval for all forms of ingestion (tinctures, pills, edibles) and inhalation (smoking and vaporization)
5	Ueberall et al.	2019	Germany	Average age: 46 years 800 patients with refractory severe chronic pain	None	PIX, mPDI, MQHFF, SF-12, and DASS used to generate an aggregate ASR-9 score	Changes in analgesic medication analyzed at end of 12-week period versus baseline	THC:CBD oromucosal spray 1 spray = 100 μl THC to CBD ratio (2.7 mg THC and 2.5 mg CBD)
6	Vigil et al.	2017	USA	Average age: 54 years 146 participants enrolled in New Mexico’s Medical Cannabis Program with chronic LBP	53 patients from same rehabilitation clinic with chronic LBP that declined invitation to enroll in MCP	Follow-up survey questions to 23 of the 37 MCP patients with frequent use of prescription opioids	Reduction of opioid dosage measured as average prescribed daily dosage of IV morphine in last 3 months versus first 3 months using GLOBALRPh equivalency calculator	Strain of whole dried flower, edible or extract
Cross-over studies
7	Yassin et al.	2019	Israel	Average age: 33 years 31 patients with chronic LBP related to fibromyalgia (28 women; 3 men) first treated with 3 months of standardized analgesic therapy	Participants served as own controls	VAS scale; ODI; FIQR; PGIC	Opioid use assessed via patient’s medical records (pharmacy dispensed medications) Grades from 1 to 4 (1-need for increased doses)	1:4 THC/CBD via smoking or vaporization
Case reports
8	Eskander et al.	2020	USA	Case #1: 40-year-old African American man Case #2: 61-year-old Caucasian woman	N/A	Case #1: pain scale of 0–10 Case #2: number of hours of relief	None	CBD cream
9	Ko et al.	2016	Canada	Case #1: 49-year-old man with neuropathic LBP Case #2: 57-year-old man with fibromyalgia-related LBP	N/A	Pain scale of 1–10	None	1–1.5 g of THC to CBD ratio vaporizer
10	Toor et al.	2017	USA	69-year-old woman with history of back pain from multiple lumbar disc herniations	N/A	Pain scale of 0–10	No exact scale. Patient able to completely wean of all opioid medications	Sublingual medical cannabis
11	Yeung et al.	2018	USA	87-year-old woman with chronic LBP	N/A	Pain scale of 0–10	None	10–20 mg of cannabinoid baked goods (3 times a day)
12	Zarabian et al.	2021	USA	71-year-old woman with chronic LBP	N/A	Pain scale of 0–10	No exact scale. Patient able to completely discontinue acetaminophen-codeine	12.5 mg of CBD oil

N/A not applicable

^aYear of publication

^bCountry where study was conducted