Kia ora! More on medical cannabis, vaping, crime and safety, plus Prince Harry and New York ganja this week on Marijuana Media on 95bFM, with hosts Corey from bFM Drive and Chris Fowlie from NORML – thanks to The Hempstore.

[Stream the pot-cast of this show on 95bFM] [download mp3]

Medical cannabis effective but expensive for New Zealanders

We certainly see this at The Hemp Store, where all day – every day – people come in and are either very happy at having recently gaining legal access to medicinal cannabis (often with our help), or they are very happy at the prospect of doing so.

Pain News Network reported on the NZ study we discussed last week, saying that according to researchers medical cannabis is very effective at relieving pain, improving sleep and reducing anxiety, and they added their voice to calls to change government policies to make cannabis cheaper and more accessible to Kiwis.

It comes as a large observational study, with 3148 Australian patients, reported cannabis can improve quality of life in people suffering from chronic diseases (Arkell et al, JAMA). Chronic noncancer pain was the most common indication for treatment (69%), followed by cancer pain (6%), insomnia (5%), and anxiety (4%).

Researchers from the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne found that after commencing treatment with medical cannabis, patients reported significant improvements relative to baseline…