Using medical marijuana helps people who suffer from lower pain significantly reduce their opioid use as well as experience lower pain intensity and functional disability, according to a new study that involved hundreds of patients.

Researchers with Tel Aviv University, Rabin Medical Center and Clalit Health Services in Israel enrolled 1,000 patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) who had previously never used cannabis and tracked their pain, disability status and medication usage annually for a period of 10 years at a specialized orthopedic pain clinic.

After a decade, opioid use, measured in morphine milligram equivalents, “decreased substantially” by 90 percent.

“Opioid reduction was rapid in the first year and remained stable through Year 10,” the researchers wrote.

Pain intensity also dropped by 84 percent, and functional disability was reduced by 30 percent.

The study, published in the European Spine Journal, also looked at how many patients achieved significant pre-specified thresholds for the outcome measures.

For reduced opioid use, 91 percent of patients met the target of at least 50 percent reduction in opioid use.

The goal of 30 percent of greater reduction on a pain intensity scale was achieved by 62 percent of participants. Sixty-two percent of patients reached the targeted decrease in functional disability scores of 10 points or more on a standardized scale.

“Medical cannabis therapy was associated with reductions in opioid use, pain intensity, and functional disability over 10 years, accompanied by polypharmacy reduction and acceptable tolerability.”

There was also a “substantial” reduction in use of other non-opioid medications among patients who completed the study.

“Tramadol/tapentadol use decreased from 89.7% to 5.6% (−84.0% points), benzodiazepines from 78.8% to 5.3% (−73.5 pp), SSRIs from 77.7% to 5.8% (−71.9 pp), and gabapentinoids from 31.3% to 0.6% (−30.7 pp),” the study said. “These reductions were clinically driven rather than protocol-mandated, reflecting individual physician-patient decisions based on symptom response. The pattern of polypharmacy reduction paralleled opioid reduction, occurring primarily in the first 2 years.”

The reduction in use of several different kinds of medications suggests that “medical cannabis may address multiple symptom domains simultaneously,” the researchers wrote.

“Chronic pain patients frequently require polypharmacy to manage pain, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and depression, each of which carries risks of adverse effects and drug interactions,” the said.

Participants in the study used marijuana products that included dried flower for vaporization and cannabis oils for oral/sublingual administration. There was some patient drop off as the study went on, and 638 of the 1,000 who enrolled ended up completing the final follow-up observation.

The researchers cautioned that the single-arm observational nature of the study means that causality cannot be inferred. They also noted that the size of the reductions in the outcome measures in the study “substantially exceeded” those from previously published randomized controlled trials, suggesting that “observational biases contribute to these findings.”

Nonetheless, they said their study is the “longest follow-up of medical cannabis therapy specifically in CLBP patients and demonstrates sustained, clinically meaningful improvements exceeding pre-specified [minimal clinically important difference] thresholds for opioid reduction, pain relief, and functional disability.”

“In this 10-year single-arm observational study, medical cannabis therapy was associated with reductions in opioid use (−89.8%), pain intensity (−84.2%), and functional disability (−30.4%), with high proportions of patients achieving pre-specified MCID thresholds,” the study concluded. “Substantial polypharmacy reductions and acceptable tolerability were observed.”

This is far from the only study supporting the efficacy of marijuana in the treatment of pain—nor is it the first to suggest cannabis can serve as a substitute for conventional therapies such as opioids.

A study published earlier this year found that medical cannabis use by people with chronic lower back pain leads to “large, sustained, and statistically robust improvements.”

In April, a study found that using medical marijuana appears to help people reduce the use of other medications, including opioids, sleeping aids and antidepressants. They also experience far fewer negative side effects after switching to cannabis from prescription drugs, the study involving more than 3,500 patients determined. 

About one in three Americans who use CBD say they take it as an alternative or supplement to at least one medication—particularly painkillers—according to a federally funded study published in February.

Similarly, another recent federally funded study, published by the American Medical Association (AMA), added more evidence that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in chronic pain treatment.

Other AMA-published research has found that legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational purposes is “significantly associated with reduced opioid use among patients diagnosed with cancer.”

A separate paper published last year similarly found that medical marijuana legalization is “associated with significant reductions in opioid prescribing.”

In August, meanwhile, Australian researchers published a study showing that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in pain management treatment.

Another study published last year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that, among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.

Other research also found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.

Further research also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” that report said. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”

Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that “cannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,” it said.

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Using marijuana appears to have a “positive outcome” on people struggling with some eating disorders, according to a new study.

“Cannabis is widely used by people with eating disorders and is widely perceived as beneficial in restrictive and food-averse, but not binge, eating disorder subtypes,” the paper, published in the Journal of Eating Disorders, found.

Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia surveyed more than 7,500 people with a diagnosed or self-reported eating disorder (ED), with more than 3,o00 of whom that used cannabis within the past year. Respondents represented 76 countries, with most residing in Australia (29.7 percent), the United Kingdom (21.7 percent) and the United States (17.6 percent).

“Cannabis received the highest mean ratings of any drug for improving ED symptoms” among people avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, anorexia nervosa and other specified feeding and eating disorder, the study found. People with unspecified feeding or eating disorder “also reported a favorable rating.”

For people with anorexia nervosa specifically, “cannabis use drove reductions in food-related anxiety and guilt, which, together with appetite stimulation, helped normalise their eating,” the study found. “The gastroprotective and antinausea properties of cannabis appear to provide additional therapeutic benefits over and above those provided by appetite stimulation and anxiety reduction.”

For people with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), which involves a lack of desire to eat and aversions to food based on sensory factors such as texture, taste and smell, there is a “transformational effect of cannabis” related to “increased appetite and enhanced ability to recognise hunger cues,” the researchers wrote.

“The higher frequency of daily cannabis use amongst those with ARFID may well reflect self-medication for these therapeutic benefits,” they said. “Indeed, daily use of cannabis flower was generally associated with higher ED symptom improvement scores relative to intermittent use, suggesting that symptom improvement may drive frequency of use.”

In contrast, people with binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa, “provided lower ratings” for marijuana’s efficacy—perhaps because “the appetite-stimulating properties of THC may exacerbate binge/purge symptomatology,” the paper said.

When participants were prompted with open-ended questions, “general mental health was self-reported as improved by cannabis in most respondents regardless of diagnosis,” the researchers wrote. Participants also said cannabis helps with improved ability to eat, improved awareness of hunger cues, reduced guilt related to their eating disorder, less nausea and diminished food-related anxiety.

“Our findings suggest that cannabis is widely used by individuals with an ED or disordered eating and that naturalistic use of cannabis is self-reported as having a positive outcome on ED symptoms.”

That said, “a substantial number described mixed experiences of both improvement and exacerbation of ED symptoms,” the study found.

The research is a follow-up to an earlier paper that some of the same authors published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that marijuana and psychedelics were “the highest rated” drugs in effectively addressing eating disorder symptoms.

“Our top-level analysis indicated that cannabis was commonly used among respondents and was one of the few drugs rated positively for ED symptom improvement. In [anorexia nervosa], [avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder,], and [other specified deeding and eating disorder], this positive rating was superior to all prescription drugs.”

While daily use of marijuana flower specifically was more associated with improved eating disorder scores than intermittent use in the new study, symptom improvement didn’t vary overall based on cannabis product type or cannabinoid composition.

The researchers noted that the self-report and naturalistic nature of the study means that no strong causal conclusions can be drawn, saying that “future clinical trials of cannabis products are warranted in eating disorders.”

They also flagged concerns about cannabis dependence and “other adverse effects” of frequent use that some participants reported.

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Researchers hooked a flowmeter to pre-rolls at social smoke sessions in five states and found three distinct ways people pull on a joint. All three moved more smoke than the cigarette settings cannabis research has been running for decades.

Researchers found three ways people smoke a joint, and you are almost certainly one of them.

That’s the finding of a new white paper from the Network of Applied Pharmacognosy, which took a flowmeter to social consumption events across California, Massachusetts, New York, Nevada and South Carolina between September 2024 and June 2025, handed people a one-gram pre-roll, and asked them to smoke the way they normally smoke.

Sixty-two people did. Eleven recordings were thrown out for bad data. The remaining 51 sorted, almost embarrassingly cleanly, into three groups.

Which One Are You?

The intense puffer is the majority, 57% of the group. Sharp pull, peak flow almost immediately, done in a couple of seconds.

The slow puffer is the smallest group, 20%. Long, steady draw that takes nearly twice as long and never spikes.

The double puffer, 23%, takes two hits back to back, one or two seconds apart, as a single event. This is the one you can spot across a circle.

Riley Kirk, a co-author on the paper, put the difference between the first two in terms anyone who has ordered a drink can follow.

“It’s really a difference between a fast intense pull, almost like you’re sipping boba from a straw, versus a long, slow pull that’s more like sipping a thick milkshake.”

Riley Kirk, Network of Applied Pharmacognosy

And here is the counterintuitive part. The gentle one moves more smoke.

“The intense pull hits its peak strength almost immediately, under a second in, and the whole thing is over in about 2 seconds,” Kirk told High Times. “The slow pull takes almost twice as long to build up, and never hits as high a peak, but it holds there instead of spiking. Interestingly, that’s what actually pulls in more total smoke per puff than the intense style. The slower pull feels gentler, but the extra time more than makes up for the lower intensity.”

The numbers back it up. The intense profile peaks at 41.7 mL/s and averages 59.3 mL of smoke per puff. The slow profile peaks at barely half that, 22.4 mL/s, and still averages 72.5 mL. The double puff, counting both hits, comes in highest at 76.8 mL.

Science Has Been Studying You as a Cigarette Smoker

Here is why anyone outside a smoke circle should care. When a lab wants to know what is in cannabis smoke, it doesn’t ask a person to smoke. It programs a smoking machine. And for decades those machines have been running puff settings borrowed from tobacco research: roughly a two-second puff pulling 35 to 55 mL, the ISO and Health Canada standards built to model a cigarette smoker.

Every one of the three cannabis profiles is bigger than that.

“Cannabis smoke research has been borrowing cigarette puff settings for decades, and the issue is that cannabis consumers just don’t smoke like cigarette smokers do,” Kirk said. “Cannabis consumers typically inhale far more deeply and hold their breath much longer than cigarette smokers, which produces very different puff volumes.”

She added that some smokers in the dataset had puff volumes well over 100 mL, “so we’re likely underestimating smoke and compound delivery just by using the cigarette numbers as a stand-in.”

What that means in practice is that the existing body of lab work on what comes off a burning joint has largely been built around cigarette puff settings that don’t fully reflect how cannabis consumers actually smoke.

What the Chemistry Might Do

This paper measures behavior, not smoke. It does not tell you whether one style delivers more THC, more terpenes or more of the things nobody wants in their lungs. But it sets up the question, and Kirk has a hypothesis.

“Our working hypothesis is that puff length and flow rate change the temperature of the ember itself, and that a longer, slower burn could produce meaningfully different chemistry than a short, hot pull, resulting in more or less of certain cannabinoids, terpenes, or combustion byproducts,” she said. “We haven’t measured that chemistry yet, though. But that’s exactly what this data sets up, and it’s the focus of the next paper.”

That next paper will run the three profiles on smoking machines and analyze what each one produces. “This paper showed us there are clear, distinct ways people smoke cannabis,” Kirk said. “The next one will tell us what that means for the consumer, whether one profile delivers more THC, more terpenes, or more of the byproducts we’d rather people weren’t inhaling.”

Real People, Real Sessions

The thing that surprised Kirk was not the shapes. It was how tidy they were, given where the data came from.

“This wasn’t a controlled lab session. We collected data at real social gatherings across five states, with different products, papers, and filters, all factors we know introduce variability. Given all that, I expected the puff shapes to be all over the place. Instead, three clear patterns emerged anyway.”

Riley Kirk

The authors are upfront about what that setting costs them. Sixty-two people at parties is not a randomized sample, and the profiles reflect who happened to be in those rooms. Paper, filter, grind, moisture and age of the pre-roll all vary and all affect the draw. Each recording covers at least three minutes, not a whole joint, so it misses how the pull changes as the coal settles, the joint shortens and resin builds. And the device itself, with its tubing and altered mouthpiece, may change how somebody smokes.

They also note something that no cigarette protocol has ever had to account for: people pass joints around, while cigarette smokers generally smoke their own.

What the paper claims for itself is narrow and worth stating plainly. It is the first documented set of cannabis-specific puff profiles, and the first set of parameters a lab could program into a smoking machine instead of the cigarette defaults. Whether that changes what we know about cannabis smoke is a question for the next study.

In the meantime, the next time somebody in the circle takes two quick hits before passing, you know what to call them.

Disclosure: “From User Behavior to Laboratory Standards: Developing Cannabis Smoking Machine Protocols from Real-World Puff Topography Data” is an open-access white paper Updated by the Network of Applied Pharmacognosy in June 2026. It has not been peer reviewed. The measurements were taken with the CannaFlo, a flowmeter made by Cambustion Ltd., and two Cambustion employees are co-authors. The authors say the white paper itself received no direct funding, and that the broader Science of Smokability research program is supported by industry sponsors including Abstrax, Boveda, Cannatrol, Curaleaf, Custom Cones, Day Savers, the Ganjier Group, the Hemp Mine and Plant Life Co.

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Medical marijuana helps 91 percent of older adults improve their pain, insomnia and mood or behavioral symptoms, a new study has found.

The research involved 124 people over the age of 65 who received medical cannabis from a specialized practice in Colombia and whose symptoms were measured at baseline, 44 of whom had a follow-up visit after three months.

Most of the participants had not previously used marijuana, and the most frequent diagnoses they presented with were pain-related and musculoskeletal disorders, cancer and neurodegenerative and non-degenerative neurological disorders—with their top therapeutic objectives being relief of pain, mood/behavioral issues, insomnia and motor symptoms.

Patients’ symptoms were recorded by treating physicians and then coded by researchers on a four-point scale (0 = absent, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, and 3 = severe), “classified according to its documented impact on patients’ autonomy, basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and participation in meaningful daily activities,” the paper said.

“Symptom severity decreased significantly across the three main symptom domains, with improvement in approximately 90% of patients.”

Symptom improvement was defined as a reduction of at least one point in severity relative to baseline, and 91 percent of participants met that threshold, the study, which has not yet been published in a journal and has been made available as a preprint, found.

“The first documented improvement occurred at visit 2 in 67.7% of patients with pain, 65.4% of those with insomnia, and 73.9% of those with mood or behavioral symptoms, with median times to first improvement of three, two, and one month, respectively,” the researchers wrote.

“Symptom evolution between baseline and the last available follow-up visit demonstrated a consistent reduction in symptom severity across the three most prevalent clinical domains. Median severity scores for pain, insomnia, and mood or behavioral symptoms decreased significantly from baseline to the last available assessment, and no patient showed worsening of symptom severity.”

Analyses also showed that there were “strong effect sizes” for descriptive improvements in digestive and motor symptoms, appetite, well-being and physical strength—though those were not statistically significant.

There was a “significant progressive decline in symptom severity over successive follow-up visits for pain, insomnia, and mood or behavioral symptoms.”

While total resolution of symptoms was uncommon, a small numbers of patients with pain, insomnia and mood/behavioral issues did report complete relief.

Notably, the researchers said that the clinically effective doses of cannabis, which was most commonly administered in oral oil-based formulations, was “low”—typically using just a few milligrams per day of THC, CBD and/or CBG.

The study, which received funding from the European Union, also measured patients’ ongoing use of other medications after starting cannabis, finding that while the “overall medication burden remained stable,” there were dose reductions or discontinuations of concomitant medications in a quarter of the patients.

Overall, there was a “favorable longitudinal evolution of the three most prevalent symptom domains—pain, insomnia, and mood or behavioral symptoms—during routine treatment with supervised medical cannabis,” the paper said.

“Symptom intensity decreased from predominantly moderate to mild levels, and most patients experienced at least a one-point reduction in the severity of their principal symptom during follow-up. Longitudinal analyses further showed progressive improvement across successive follow-up visits, suggesting that these changes reflected a sustained clinical trajectory rather than an isolated difference between baseline and the final assessment.”

“In this retrospective real-world study, older adults receiving supervised medical cannabis experienced favorable symptom evolution during follow-up, while treatment showed a clinically acceptable safety profile and was characterized by consistently low documented clinically effective doses,” the researchers concluded.

The findings, they said, “add to the growing evidence that cannabis may represent a therapeutic option for selected older adults under specialist supervision.”

The researchers cautioned that the observational nature of the study means that causality cannot be inferred, though they do plan to follow up with larger cohorts of patients in Colombia, Argentina and Chile, which they said will “improve statistical power, increase the diversity of clinical practice settings, and allow more robust evaluation of treatment patterns, effectiveness, and safety across different healthcare contexts.”

A separate recent federally funded study published by the American Medical Association (AMA) found that “older adults are increasingly turning to cannabis for symptom management”—with many motivated to try marijuana “as an alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals due to concerns about adverse effects.”

“As cannabis legalization becomes more widespread, older adults are increasingly turning to it not just for recreational use, but to manage symptoms associated with aging, including pain, sleep disturbances, and mental health concerns,” that research found.

AMA separately adopted a resolution this year that recognizes both the risks and potential therapeutic benefits of marijuana use among older adults.

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.

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A comprehensive meta-analysis of previously published studies has found that cannabidiol (CBD) – widely touted as a way to reduce the negative effects of cannabis – may actually be making products more potent by significantly increasing blood levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

The review, published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, analysed data from 14 clinical trials involving 341 participants.

For years, health guidelines have nudged cannabis users towards products with more CBD and less THC, on the assumption that CBD softens THC’s effects. However, the researchers found that when CBD was taken alongside THC, it increased overall THC blood levels by an average of 31%.

More dramatically, high doses of CBD nearly doubled blood levels of 11-hydroxy-THC, an active metabolite which many scientists believe is equally or more potent than THC itself.

“Cannabis users and prescribers of cannabinoid-based products should be made aware of the potential for drug-drug pharmacokinetic interactions between CBD and THC,” wrote lead researcher Lucy Chester and her team at the Research Centre, Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal.

The interaction appeared most significant with orally consumed cannabis products, such as edibles, capsules and oils, where CBD doses ranged from 105mg to 800mg. 11-hydroxy-THC (11-OH-THC) is a common metabolite produced when consuming edible cannabis products containing THC. The research suggests CBD may be blocking key liver enzymes (CYP2C9 and CYP2C19) responsible for breaking down both THC and 11-OH-THC. By inhibiting these enzymes, CBD essentially allows the psychoactive compounds to accumulate in the bloodstream.

The researchers found less dramatic but still significant effects with inhaled cannabis, where CBD doses were typically much lower (4mg to 30mg). One study using 400mg inhaled CBD had to be modified because participants couldn’t tolerate the throat irritation from such high doses.

The authors called for better-designed clinical trials to fully characterise this interaction, particularly studies using realistic doses and chronic CBD administration patterns that reflect real-world use. They noted that many people use CBD daily as a supplement or medication, which could lead to even more pronounced interactions.

“While it remains to be determined how CBD-related increases in THC and 11-OH-THC levels translate into behavioural or adverse effects, the findings from the meta-analysis highlight the need for caution and nuance when broadly encouraging high doses of CBD in combination with THC,” the study concluded.

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Full-spectrum cannabis oil is associated with “favorable perceived quality of life and sleep satisfaction,” according to a new study of medical marijuana patients. Higher concentrations and longer treatments also seemed to produce “higher odds of better outcomes.”

Researchers at State University of Montes Claros conducted a cross-sectional observational survey involving 71 medical patients enrolled in Brazil’s medical marijuana program. Respondents included people who use marijuana for psychological conditions (37 percent), neurological disorders (21 percent) and chronic musculoskeletal pain (11 percent) that can contribute to sleep issues.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology, found that the use of cannabis oil with a 3:1 THC-to-CBD ratio was linked to “positive correlations” between the “psychological domains of quality of life and sleep satisfaction.”

About half of patients reported using marijuana-derived preparations with concentrations of 6 percent, followed by 9 percent (20 percent of patients) and 3 percent (14 percent of patients). The participants were monitored by medical professionals throughout the treatment, with laboratory reviews and assessments of “medication concentration adequacy,” for example.

Notably, the researchers determined that higher cannabis oil concentrations and longer treatment durations were associated with “higher odds of better outcomes.”

“In a real-world clinical context, supervised use of full-spectrum medical Cannabis oil was associated with favorable patient-reported perceptions of quality of life and sleep, consistent with perceived effectiveness,” the study said. “These findings highlight the need for longitudinal studies with pre-treatment baseline assessment.”

To analyze the impact of medical marijuana, patients completed a version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire that asked about “physical, psychological, social relations and environment domains,” as well as an equivalent to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to determine “subjective and objective sleep components” over four weeks before the test was administered.

“A key finding was the relationship between sleep and wellbeing as an integrating axis, evidenced by the positive correlation between psychological domains [of the life quality survey] and sleep satisfaction,” the study authors said. “Consistent with prior evidence, systematic reviews and scoping reviews on cannabinoids and sleep indicate that subjective improvements are frequent but inconsistent, varying substantially according to population, metabolite, dose, ratio of cannabinoids, and route of administration.”

The study findings are “consistent with the hypothesis that cannabinoid interventions may influence wellbeing through direct and indirect pathways (sleep, relaxation, anxiety reduction, and symptom modulation), beyond the primary control of a target symptom,” they wrote.

“In summary, the results suggest that, in supervised clinical practice, patients using full-spectrum THC and CBD rich oil reported favorable perceived quality of life and sleep satisfaction. However, given the cross-sectional design and the absence of pre-treatment assessment, these findings reflect self-reported perceptions rather than evidence of treatment efficacy, and causal interpretation is not warranted. Future longitudinal studies, with pre-treatment assessment, systematic follow-up, and more detailed product characterization, are needed to clarify mechanisms, responding subgroups, and the risk-benefit balance of prolonged use, especially in products with higher THC content.”

The study reaffirms some of the best-studied health impacts of cannabis. That is, it has been shown to hels people sleep and feel physical and psychological symptom relief.

For example, research published earlier this summer found that a cup of tea infused with marijuana before going to bed can lead to a better night’s sleep and an overall improved sense of happiness in life.

“The results demonstrated a statistically significant increase in happiness levels between pre-experimental and post-experimental groups, indicating that cannabis-infused tea had a positive effect on participants’ well-being,” the study, published in the Journal of Health Science and Medical Research, found.

A study of adults who drink cannabis-infused beverages that was published earlier this year, for example, found evidence of a “substitution effect,” with a significant majority of participants reporting reduced alcohol use after incorporating cannabinoid drinks into their routines. It also identified improvements in overall wellbeing and sleep, as well as reductions in pain, stress, depression and anxiety.

A survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that about 2 in 3 Americans who use marijuana say it improves their sleep.

Separate research involving more than 3,500 patients showed that using medical marijuana appears to help people reduce the use of medications, including sleeping aids. They also experience far fewer negative side effects after switching to cannabis from prescription drugs.

A 2025 study on the use of medical marijuana by older patients—age 50 and above—concluded that “cannabis seemed to be a safe and effective treatment” for sleep disorders, pain and other conditions.

About 16 percent of Americans aged 21 and older say they use cannabis as a sleep aid, according to a separate industry-backed survey from last year. That makes marijuana more popular for sleep than prescription sleep aids (12 percent) or alcohol (11 percent), but still not quite as common as using supplements (26 percent) or over-the-counter sleep aids (19 percent).

A pair of 2024 studies found that both older medical marijuana patients as well as people with fibromyalgia reported that cannabis improved their sleep.

A different study that year from the retirement group AARP found that marijuana use by older people in the U.S. has nearly doubled, with better sleep as among the most frequently cited reasons.

Another industry-backed survey last year found that an oral CBD solution effectively treated mild to moderate anxiety, as well as associated depression and poor sleep quality, with no serious adverse events observed.

A study published in 2024, meanwhile, found that using marijuana before sleep has minimal if any effect on a range of performance measures the next day, including simulated driving, cognitive and psychomotor function tasks, subjective effects and mood.

In 2023, a federally funded study found that people with anxiety experienced better quality sleep on days when they used marijuana compared to days when they used alcohol or nothing at all.

Separate studies in 2019, meanwhile, found that fewer people purchased over-the-counter (OTC) sleep medications when they had legal access to cannabis and that many adult-use consumers at the time said they used marijuana for the same reasons medical cannabis patients did: to help with pain and sleep.

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4,516 people logged what they drank for three weeks. On the days they had a THC beverage, their odds of also drinking alcohol fell by roughly half. The finding held for 23 of the 36 products tested, and moved the same direction in every one.

The largest real-world study of hemp THC beverages has published its numbers, and the clearest thing in it has nothing to do with sleep, pain or productivity.

It’s beer.

MoreBetter, a Philadelphia research firm that has run observational studies on consumer products since 2016, tracked 4,516 people across 36 products from 23 brands, at doses between 1 and 10 milligrams of THC. Each participant logged seven days before touching any product, fourteen days on it, then answered an exit survey. Every person served as their own control, measured against their own pre-use baseline. The fieldwork ran in two waves across 2025, so the results are new rather than the research. The company published the full dataset free on its Real-World Data Exchange platform and prepared a findings summary exclusively for High Times, breaking out the numbers behind each measure.

On a participant’s ordinary day, before any of this started, the modeled probability that they would drink alcohol was 22.9%. On days they drank one of these beverages, it was 10.9%.

Two Measurements, One Direction

What gives that number weight is that it doesn’t come from asking anybody about it. It comes from what people logged, day by day, about what they actually drank, run through a model that compares each person to themselves.

The exit survey asked the question directly, and the answers point the same way. Two-thirds said they were consuming less alcohol. Fifty-six percent called the drinks a regular replacement for it. Those are people describing themselves, which is a weaker kind of evidence, but they line up with the behavioral measure instead of contradicting it.

The tightest number in that group is the health one. An 86.6% average with a floor of 80% across every single product means the belief holds no matter which drink somebody picked up. Worth being precise about what that measures: it’s what people think, not what is true. Nothing in this study tested whether these products are safer than alcohol.

The eleven-point gap between the health answer and the social one is the more interesting detail. People are more confident about what these drinks do to their body than about how showing up with one plays in a room.

Fifty Days Later

The obvious question about a two-week study is whether anything survives it. MoreBetter went back and asked.

Fifty days after the study period ended, the company surveyed participants from 18 of the 36 products about how their relationship with alcohol had changed. It got 1,420 responses. Setting aside the 249 who weren’t drinking alcohol before any of this began leaves 1,171 people who were. Those results are not on the public dashboard; MoreBetter provided them to High Times on the record.

Two things to hold onto there. A third of respondents reported no change at all, which is the honest headline alongside the 63%. And this is people recalling their own drinking seven weeks later, on a narrower base than the main dataset, which makes it softer evidence than the daily logs. It points the same direction anyway, and the gap between 63% and 2.4% is not a close call.

MoreBetter also says a portion of the original group has continued into a second and now a third cohort, the third of which is currently open, spanning 12 to 18 months between the first and the present one. The point is to see whether consumption patterns and substitution behavior hold up over that kind of stretch. Those results don’t exist yet.

What It Actually Feels Like

The experience these numbers describe is mild and short, which is the whole design premise of the category and now has some evidence under it.

Duration is the most consistent thing in the entire dataset. Thirty-six products, 23 brands, doses spanning a factor of ten, and every one of them landed between two and 2.9 hours. The standard deviation is 0.2 hours. Whatever else varies in this category, how long it lasts does not.

Feeling high is the opposite. It swings from 18.8% of use days to 81.5%, which is what a 1 to 10 milligram spread would predict, and it means the 53.3% average describes almost nobody’s actual product. Half the people buying in this category are not particularly trying to get high, and the products know it.

The onset figure needs an asterisk. Participants picked from bands rather than clocking themselves, so 26.9 minutes is a center of mass, not a stopwatch reading.

And the hangover number, which the industry will want to run with, is a share of use days rather than a share of people. There was no alcohol comparison group in this study, so it cannot be read as better or worse than a hangover from drinking. MoreBetter says so itself, in writing, which is not something most industry-funded research bothers to do.

The Productivity Number, Handled Carefully

Participants reported roughly 36 more minutes of productive time on product days than on their own non-product days, a jump from 5.64 hours to 6.24. That reached significance for 20 of the 36 products, and every significant result was positive.

The companion measure is messier and deserves the scrutiny. The probability of reporting a productive day rose 12.5 points on average, but that only held for 13 of 36 products, and one product moved 15 points in the other direction. The accurate version is that for about a third of the products tested, people were more likely to report a good day, and for one of them the reverse was true.

Both are estimates people made about their own hours, not measured output.

How to Read Any of This

This is observational, not a clinical trial. There is no placebo arm and no separate comparison group; the comparison is each participant against their own pre-use baseline, which is a real method with real limits. People chose to enroll and chose their product through what MoreBetter calls a semi-blinded process. Almost everything here is self-reported, including the alcohol logs behind the headline finding. This describes what a large group of people reported while drinking these products. It does not establish that the products caused any of it.

One caveat matters more than the rest, and it comes from MoreBetter rather than from us. When a finding is significant for 23 of 36 products, the headline average covers only those 23. Products that showed no significant change are left out of the average, not counted as zero. Quote the twelve-point drop without the coverage number and you have overstated it. That warning is printed in the company’s own summary, in bold.

Who Paid For It

MoreBetter says it funded the Infused Beverage Study primarily itself, with partial funding from the beverage brands whose products were tested, and that those brands had no influence over protocol design, data analysis or published findings.

Twenty-three brands participated: BRĒZ, Cantrip, Nowadays, Uncle Arnie’s, Willie’s Remedy+, Woodstock, Medterra, Rebel Rabbit, Snoop Dogg’s Iconic Tonics, Herbal Oasis, Cornbread Hemp, Stiiizy, 1906, Sober(ish), Wims!, Hippie Water, Squared, Hightail, Kava Haven, 23rd State, Drippy, Good Feels and Rexis Biotech.

None of that makes the data bad, and the company reports 17 peer-reviewed publications across 12 university research partnerships behind it. It does mean some of the companies that helped pay for the study sell the products the study is being used to defend, and anyone citing these numbers in a policy fight should say so. Nothing is broken out by brand, so no figure here belongs to any individual participant.

The Products in This Study Are About to Stop Being Legal

Section 781 of Public Law 119-37 caps finished hemp products at 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, applied to the whole package rather than a serving. It takes effect November 12.

The products in this study run from 1 to 10 milligrams per serving. The weakest one carries more than twice the legal ceiling for an entire container.

None of the 36 would survive it.

That date is still moving. The Senate has passed a stopgap that would push most of the new restrictions to December 11, and the House hasn’t taken it up. Until it does, November 12 is the law. We’ve been tracking the whole fight here.

Some brands have already made their bet. Cann pulled the THC out of part of its lineup, while B-Real and Rachel Wolfson launched into the same market with full-dose product. One side is reformulating for the rule on the books. The other is betting Congress changes it first. NielsenIQ data cited by MoreBetter puts the category at $239 million in tracked retail sales over the 52 weeks ending June 27, up 135% year over year, which is what the 0.4 milligram number is aimed at and why the fight has pulled in everyone from trade groups to Rosario Dawson.

Every figure in this article, and the several dozen measures that didn’t make it in, are free at rwdexchange.com/community. Verify a phone number or email, enter the code, then open Community Insights and the Infused Beverage Performance Data dashboard. No cost, no trial period, no card. Everything is filterable by seltzer, soda, sparkling beverage, functional tonic, and spirits, shots and mixers, and MoreBetter asks that anyone using the figures credit the source.

The data arrived after the vote.

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Drinking cannabis infused tea before bed can significantly boost happiness levels, according to new research.

The quasi-experimental study, conducted by Rajamangala University of Technology Isan in Sakon Nakhon, tested three different formulations of cannabis drip tea on 30 volunteers over a seven-day period. Participants were divided into three groups, each receiving tea infused with 3%, 5% or 7% weight/weight cannabis.

The results, published in the Journal of Health Science and Medical Research, demonstrated significant increases in happiness levels across all three concentrations. The 7% formulation produced the highest happiness scores and was identified as the most suitable option for improving well-being.

“The findings from this study support the potential application of cannabis-infused tea in improving happiness levels,” the researchers wrote, noting that the tea was prepared using traditional Thai medicinal approaches.

Researchers evaluated happiness using the Thai Mental Health Index (TMHI), which measures four key areas: mental state, mental capacity, mental quality and supporting factors. Participants who consumed the 7% cannabis tea showed improvements across all four areas, including enhanced life satisfaction, self-esteem, emotional regulation and confidence.

The lower concentrations of 3% and 5% also produced positive effects, particularly in mental state and supporting factors, with participants reporting increased life satisfaction and self-respect.

Notably, none of the 30 participants reported any side effects during the trial period. Volunteers were instructed to prepare the tea at home by steeping one tea bag in 250ml of hot water for 10 minutes and consuming it 30 minutes before bedtime.

The tea formulations also contained peppermint and stevia alongside cannabis leaves, which the researchers noted could have also contributed to the overall effects. They also emphasised that their findings align with traditional Thai medicine practices, which have long used herbal teas for health promotion and treatment. However, they recommended further studies to explore the long-term effects of cannabis-infused tea consumption to determine its efficacy and safety over extended periods.

In May 2026, a cross-clinic study of over 6,000 medical cannabis patients in the UK found that 98% of respondents reported improvements in mental health following treatment with medical cannabis.

According to NHS England, 22.6% of 16 to 64-year-olds had a common mental health condition in 2024 – up from 18.9% in 2014. An estimated 1.7m people were waiting for NHS mental health treatment in England in 2025.

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A new study that aimed to assess how people living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could benefit from medical cannabis has discovered positive results, with improvements observed across multiple measures over an 18-month period.

Published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, the research highlights how treatment with cannabis flowers, cannabis oils, or a combination of both was associated with meaningful and beneficial outcomes across multiple metrics.

Scientists from the Medical Cannabis Research Group at Imperial College, London, conducted the trial. The data was supplied by 130 patients who had been diagnosed with ASD, were already being treated with cannabis medicine, and who were registered on the UK Medical Cannabis Register (UKMCR).

Patients were assessed at the beginning of the study and at regular intervals over an 18-month period. The results showed that they experienced significant improvements in areas including quality of life, anxiety, and sleep.

ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is marked by challenges in social communication and interaction, alongside restricted and repeated behaviours. Patients can experience different symptoms, including but not limited to social communication and interaction difficulties, oversensitivity, being fixated on specific subjects and repeated behaviour patterns.

There are currently no recognised pharmaceutical treatments for ASD, although people living with the condition are often prescribed drugs such as antidepressants and stimulants for co-occurring conditions including ADHD and depression.

The treatments available for ASD are usually focused on the individual patient’s needs and rely heavily on therapy-based interventions that include behavioural, speech and language, and occupational therapies.

It is estimated that around 0.6% of the global population lives with ASD, and with the recent advancements in diagnosis techniques, such as the use of AI to scan facial expressions, this figure is rising.

People living with ASD are highly likely to experience other conditions alongside autism. Between 50 – 83% of people with ASD are thought to have to learn to cope with symptoms that often exacerbate their condition, including anxiety, sleep disorders, and depression.

Researchers on the study were not looking at cannabis as a cure or treatment for ASD itself, but rather an alternative treatment for the co-morbid conditions which often accompany it. Currently, many patients are prescribed drugs such as SSRIs and antipsychotics, which can cause unwanted side effects and are often poorly tolerated.

“ASD treatment does not seek to change the core features of the condition, but rather treat associated distressed behaviours or psychiatric conditions. There is a paucity of high-quality evidence on the efficacy of these therapies in ASD. Conventional pharmaceutical treatments may include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and atypical antipsychotics, such as risperidone and aripiprazole, which have shown to reduce some dimensions of symptoms associated with ASD,” the authors said.

To test the efficacy of cannabis for the treatment of co-occurring ASD symptoms, researchers assessed 130 patients who were living with ASD and who were registered on the UKMCR.

Participants completed an initial assessment at the beginning of the study in which they supplied details about their tobacco and alcohol use, cannabis status (if they used, didn’t use, or used to use it), amount of grey-market cannabis used and details about their current cannabis prescription. They were also asked to complete patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), which would evaluate their general anxiety level, sleep, and quality of life score, and asked to provide details on how their condition has changed (PGIC).

Across all recorded measures, patients’ scores were observed to increase from baseline all the way through to 18 months, apart from the PGIC score, which showed improvements from 1 month through to 18 months.

From the cohort, 25 participants reported adverse events (AEs), with most being classified as either mild or moderate. The most common adverse events were insomnia, dry mouth and lethargy.

Notably, the median daily THC dose increased nearly tenfold during the study period, from 20mg/day at baseline to 192.25mg/day at 18 months, suggesting dose escalation was required to maintain effects.

Researchers noted that cannabis medicine had a positive effect on the co-occurring symptoms experienced by participants in this study, but acknowledged the study’s limitations due to the lack of a control group.

“This case series explored the outcomes of autistic adults treated with CBMPs. The findings indicate that CBMPs were associated with improvements in anxiety, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life,” the authors said in their conclusion. “While a proportion (19.23%) of the cohort reported adverse events, the majority were mild or moderate. As an uncontrolled observational analysis, the study cannot establish causation; reported changes should be interpreted as temporal associations and not as evidence of a treatment effect.”

The findings add weight to those of other studies investigating how cannabis medicines can be used to assist those living with ASD, with results suggesting that it can be used for short-term relief and advising against long-term reliance on cannabis.

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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a new clinical trial to investigate whether psilocybin can help military veterans who are struggling with treatment-resistant depression.

The move follows VA’s recent announcement of a separate trial on MDMA-assisted therapy in treating veterans with severe mental health disorders, including PTSD and alcohol use disorder.

The new psilocybin and depression research announced on Wednesday, titled “Psilocybin Intervention for Veterans Overcoming Treatment-Resistant Depression,” or PIVOT, will also include veterans concurrent PTSD.

The randomized, controlled trial—which comes on the heels of an executive order President Donald Trump signed in April with the aim of expediting psychedelic therapy access—will be conducted at five separate VA medical centers across Alabama, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington State.

“Far too many veterans are living with mental health conditions that don’t respond to available treatments,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a press release. “Under President Trump, VA is pursuing all avenues to evaluate new treatments and offer meaningful relief for those who have worn the uniform. This clinical trial reflects another step toward this goal.”

The psilocybin study will compare outcomes between two different dosage levels and will assess levels of depression before and after the psychedelic treatment, as well as tolerability of side effects.

The research “reflects VA’s commitment to pursuing innovative solutions for veterans who have not responded to existing treatments,” the department said in a press release.

Collins, the VA secretary, recently touted psychedelic therapy development at an event in Florida, saying that “we’re making massive progress in how we diagnose things, but also how we do new treatments, which in the past was more of a wait-and-see approach, and now we’re being more cutting-edge.”

Last month, VA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launchd a new partnership to collaborate on research and development of psychedelic medicines to treat people struggling with serious mental health conditions.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said recently that the Trump administration is “very anxious” to create a pathway for access to psychedelics therapy and that top officials across federal agencies want to “get it out to the public as quickly as possible.”

In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience in February, Kennedy said he’s confident “we’re going to get it done,” with plans to develop and finalize rules that would enable patients with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression to access psychedelic substances like psilocybin and MDMA in a “very controlled setting.”

“Everybody in my agency…is very anxious to get a rule out there that will allow these kind of studies and will allow access under therapeutic settings, particularly [for] the military soldiers who have suffered these injuries to get access to these products,” the HHS secretary said. “We’re working through that process now. We’re all working on it and trying to make it happen.”

“I think that we’re going to get it done,” he said.

Last June, Kennedy said his agency is “absolutely committed” to expanding research on the benefits of psychedelic therapy and, alongside of the head of FDA, is aiming to provide legal access to such substances for military veterans “within 12 months.”

Collins disclosed last year that he had an “eye-opening” talk with Kennedy about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine. And he said he’s open to the idea of having the government provide vouchers to cover the costs of psychedelic therapy for veterans who receive services outside of VA as Congress considers pathways for access.

Photo courtesy of Mark Groeneveld.

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