Cannabis seems to ease the painful muscle stiffness typical of multiple sclerosis (MS), indicates phase III trial results published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.



Up to 90 per cent of MS patients endure painful muscle stiffness at some point during the course of their disease, which reduces their mobility and interferes with daily routine activities and sleep quality.

But current treatments often fail to resolve symptoms fully, and can be harmful, as a result of which many MS patients have experimented with alternative therapies, including cannabis.

Adult MS patients with stable disease, from 22 different specialist centres across the UK, were either randomly assigned to cannabis extract (tetrahydrocannabinol) daily (144) or a dummy pill (placebo) (135) for a period of 12 weeks.

The treatments were given in gradually-increasing doses, from 2.5mg up to a maximum of 25mg for two weeks, followed by maintenance doses for the remaining 10 weeks.