Most people living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who use cannabis say it has improved their quality of life, according to new survey data published in the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids. More than half of respondents also said cannabis had helped them cut back on opioid painkillers.
Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville, led by Naueen Chaudhry, surveyed 108 patients from the university’s IBD clinic. All had a history of cannabis use and had been diagnosed with either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis – the two main forms of IBD, a condition that causes chronic inflammation of the gut and can bring on pain, nausea, weight loss and, in severe cases, surgery.
The anonymous 39-question survey found that 87.6% of respondents reported an improvement in their quality of life since using cannabis, and 61.3% said it had helped them live more independently. Over half (59%) believed cannabis use had reduced how much opioid medication they needed.
Anxiety, joint pain and nausea were the symptoms most commonly treated. Those who used cannabis daily or near-daily were more likely to report relief from nausea and vomiting (82.1%), joint pain (81%) and insomnia (80%) than less frequent users. Nearly 70% of participants used cannabis daily, and most described their use as medical rather than recreational.
The vast majority of respondents (88%) agreed that cannabis helps with IBD-related symptoms, and almost all (93 out of 94) who answered the question said they would recommend it to other IBD patients. Side effects were uncommon – just 9.1% of respondents reported any adverse effects from cannabis use, and only two people said they needed hospital treatment because of it.
Patients also appeared willing to be open with their doctors about cannabis use, with 89.5% saying they felt comfortable disclosing it to healthcare providers. However, only around a quarter said they had been counselled on possible interactions between cannabis and their other medications, a gap the researchers flagged as a priority for clinicians to address given the potential for cannabis to interact with drugs that affect liver enzyme activity.
The team also found that patients with a history of bowel surgery were far more likely to have used cannabis for more than five years and to use it at least weekly, though the researchers cautioned this doesn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship – patients with more severe disease may simply be more inclined to try cannabis over time.
The study authors described their work as a “stepping stone in bridging the knowledge gap” around cannabis use and IBD, and said the results could help doctors offer more informed guidance to patients considering it. However, they also noted some limitations to their work, including its small, single-centre sample and the fact that everyone surveyed was already a cannabis user, which could skew results towards more positive experiences.
The findings echo a 2025 study drawing on data from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry, which similarly found that people with IBD experienced sustained improvements in their health-related quality of life after using cannabis. The two studies add to a growing body of patient-reported evidence that cannabis may offer meaningful relief for a condition that remains difficult to manage with conventional treatment alone.
