More cancer doctors recommending medical marijuana for patients

Seattle, WA — Nearly half of U.S. cancer doctors who responded to a survey say they’ve recently recommended medical marijuana to patients, although most say they don’t know enough about medicinal use.

The results reflect how marijuana policy in some states has outpaced research, the study authors said. All 29 states with medical marijuana programs allow doctors to recommend it to cancer patients.

But no rigorous studies in cancer patients exist.

That leaves doctors to make assumptions from other research on similar prescription drugs, or in other types of patients.

“The big takeaway is we need more research, plain and simple,” said Dr. Ilana Braun of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who led the study published Thursday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Patients want to know what their doctors think about using marijuana.

In the new study, cancer doctors said their conversations about marijuana were almost always started by patients and their families, not by the doctors themselves.