Cannabis has become a beacon of hope for long COVID patients as a readily available, cost effective solution to treat pain.
What is Long COVID?
Before we dive into how cannabis can potentially treat long COVID, let’s first discuss what exactly is long COVID. You probably already know the symptoms of COVID, but what you may not know according to The Washington Post is that “the blood vessels of our brains are lined with endothelial cells, which have angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors, a type of protein that the coronavirus latches onto. This causes such cells to become inflamed, which harms the blood-brain-barrier, inducing swelling and resulting injury.” These cases for long COVID are rising, but the treatments are still in its developing stages. Those who are diagnosed with long COVID report to have syptoms that last weeks, months, and even years after exposure.
“Primarily, what we’re seeing is long-term cognitive consequences,” says cannabis clinician Dr. Mikhail Kogan, who is part of the George Washington University faculty and the author of Medical Marijuana: Dr. Kogan’s Evidence-Based Guide to the Health Benefits of Cannabis and CBD. “Patients present with cognitive decline, and more severe cases present with outright dementia.” He says that common symptoms of long COVID include mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, and pain, such as my migraines (which don’t help with anxiety, depression, or insomnia, you can imagine). Hair loss, brain fog, and changes in taste and smell are also common. For some folks, long COVID symptoms are totally out of the blue, but for others, it’s almost as if the SARS CoV-2 virus triggers latent conditions, or health problems they were predisposed to and the infection activated. “What happens a lot is that we uncover other problems when we start working with long COVID patients because we find that they’ve had other problems going on for a long time, but they were very mild, so nobody paid enough attention.”
The Washington Post also points out, “while there are instances of older people getting dementia after exposure, these neurological injuries usually take place in younger folks, between the ages of 20 and 50, who never needed hospitalization. Eventually, the symptoms resolve for some people. But for others, they’re still reeling from the ongoing destruction.”
Marijuana and Hemp Products as a Treatment for Long COVID
A report from High Times covers David, a 30 year old man who had faced COVID in January 2020, then experienced Long COVID symptoms, and sought out cannabis as a means of treating his ailments. “Over the past three years, we have realized a large accumulation of things wrong with us that just weren’t issues before. I have trouble breathing in intense heat and cold and I have a lot of coughing fits. Early results are pointing towards lung scarring. I also have Sleep Apnea, and my brain feels like it [has] aged 10-20 years. I have a horrible short-term memory now. I hurt a lot and am often exhausted,” David tells High Times reporters in regards to the symptoms he and his partner faces.
Both David and his partner lost their respective jobs due to long COVID. Since losing his job working in consumer and fan services at LEGO, David has found one-off jobs in the video game industry and has been able to live a more stable life with the help of cannabis. “It helps keep me focused or at least my mind off negative thoughts brought on by long COVID. For me, but much more so for my partner, it helps settle nausea. My partner literally wouldn’t be able to hold down the first meal of the day for a time without taking an edible to help settle their stomach. And sleep, oh do I enjoy actually getting to sleep again since becoming a heavier cannabis user,” David says.
Cannabis Covers all Long COVID Symptoms
Among all of the prescription drugs available, none of them are able to tackle as many long COVID symptoms as cannabis. Dr. Kogan says that in regards to Long COVID, “Almost no patients present with one symptom, everybody presents with a package. And that package will usually include three to five symptoms. Cannabis is almost the only treatment I can think of that targets all of the symptoms. If a patient comes in with migraines, insomnia, anxiety, and nausea, it’s four medications versus cannabis.” He says “CBD is the first line, but for most pain you want a little bit of CBG in the mix. Noting that this is based on experience, and more research is needed,” he adds that “CBG is very effective for chronic neuropathic pain when it’s specifically in the settings of anxiety and depression.”
Cannabis Research May be More Necessary Than Ever
Although marijuana and hemp products are proving to be an effective alternative treatment for long COVID, more research is necessary in order to further legitimize cannabis as a useful drug. Since the federal government lists marijuana as a schedule 1 controlled substance, funding necessary to boost cannabis research and credibility is inaccessible.
Fortunately, research behind cannabis isn’t limited to the United States. In the UK, NHS Research Ethics Committee and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency approved one of the world’s first scientific studies on the efficacy of cannabis to treat long COVID. This study is being funded by the NGO Drug Science owned by David Nutt. After completing their phase two trials, Drug Science CEO David Badcock tells High Times “It’s a feasibility study and we’re half-way through it so I can’t give you any results, but what I can tell you, is that those patients seem to be responding pretty well. There’s no drop out, which is great for a feasibility study. We now have over 3,000 patients who are submitting their data every month to us. What we see through that is that there is a statistically significant improvement in people’s health outcomes since they’ve been prescribed medical cannabis,”
Dr. Mikhail Kogan also claims that “Most of our patients recover. And the reason they recover is that we don’t look at this the way medicine does. We don’t just prescribe particular treatment, what we say is let’s try to find out why you have these conditions. Let’s try to fix what’s underneath the symptoms.” The brain’s known for its neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt, change, and heal. While there are plenty of horror stories, there’s no reason patients shouldn’t hope to get better over time.
