Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Feb 18.
Published in final edited form as: Pain. 2021 Jul 1;162(Suppl 1):S117–S124. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002266

TABLE 3:

Research Priorities - Harms assessment and reporting

• An effort on identifying the following potential harms in the context of long-term use of cannabis, cannabinoids and CBM for chronic pain management:

  • - Cognitive effects, with emphasis on different age groups

  • - Neurodevelopmental effects pertaining to infants, children and adolescents including neuronal development, effects on learning, learning impediments and academic achievement

  • - Mental health disorders, with emphasis on psychosis and depression

  • - Neurological effects

  • - Cannabis use disorders

  • - Pulmonary effects

  • - Effects in pregnancy and breastfeeding

  • - Effects on driving and operating machinery

  • - Cardiovascular effects

  • - Carcinogenicity, with emphasis on genitourinary cancers.

• Investigating the role of a cannabinoid compound, dose, route, exposure (pharmacokinetics) and duration of use in specific short-term and long-term adverse effects.
• Investigating drug-drug interactions, particularly with drugs with narrow therapeutic windows (e.g., anticoagulants, immunosuppressants, opioids, intravenous general anesthetics).
• Understanding individual factors (e.g. demographic, psychological, genetic, comorbidity, concomitant medication use) that confer susceptibility vs resilience to adverse effects from cannabinoids.
• Compare harms related to the use of cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids for medical purposes under medical supervision to those associated with use in the absence of expert medical supervision.
• Population research methods to track self-prescribed cannabis use specific for pain management, and track both potential benefits and harms from that mode of use.
• Improve approaches to assess and report harms of cannabis, cannabinoids and CBM in pain RCTs with appropriate post exposure duration of follow up for long-term adverse events.