Author information
Abstract
Background: Benzodiazepines are a class of medication with sedative properties, commonly used for anxiety and other neurological conditions. These medications are associated with several well-known adverse effects. This observational study aims to investigate the reduction of benzodiazepine use in patients using prescribed medical cannabis.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on a cohort of 146 medical cannabis patients (average age 47 years, 61% female, 54% reporting prior use of cannabis) who reported benzodiazepine use at initiation of cannabis therapy. These data are a part of a database gathered by a medical cannabis clinic (Canabo Medical). Descriptive statistics were used to quantify associations of the proportion of benzodiazepine use with time on medical cannabis therapy.
Results: After completing an average 2-month prescription course of medical cannabis, 30.1% of patients had discontinued benzodiazepines. At a follow-up after two prescriptions, 65 total patients (44.5%) had discontinued benzodiazepines. At the final follow-up period after three medical cannabis prescription courses, 66 total patients (45.2%) had discontinued benzodiazepine use, showing a stable cessation rate over an average of 6 months.
Conclusion: Within a cohort of 146 patients initiated on medical cannabis therapy, 45.2% patients successfully discontinued their pre-existing benzodiazepine therapy. This observation merits further investigation into the risks and benefits of the therapeutic use of medical cannabis and its role relating to benzodiazepine use.
KEYWORDS: benzodiazepines, deprescribing, discontinuation, medical cannabis
- PMID: 31559336
- PMCID: PMC6757237
- DOI: 10.1089/can.2018.0020
Conflict of interest statement
A.D. has an ongoing financial relationship with Canabo Medical, in which Canabo Medical financially compensates A.D. for private corporate data analysis services of patient prescriptions for strictly commercial purposes. This arrangement has no impact on the academic data analyses of this anonymized data set and is therefore unrelated to the present study. We acknowledge this as a potential competing interest. C.P., N.M., and S.M.T.: No competing financial interests exist.
