The actual studies
A curated index of peer-reviewed cannabis research from PubMed. Browse by condition, filter by study type (meta-analyses and RCTs lead). Every result links straight to the source on pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Re-indexed weekly.
★ Featured studies · with our plain-English read
- Read · published 2026-06-03Research article PMID 23648372
The first randomized trial of inhaled cannabis for Crohn's disease, and the paper that mirrors the actual patient experience I've been living with since I was diagnosed in 1999.
Full breakdown → - Read · published 2026-05-27Research article PMID 28538134
The trial that put CBD in the medical mainstream. Devinsky and a multi-center team ran a 14-week placebo-controlled study of pharmaceutical-grade cannabidiol in 120 children and young adults with Dravet syndrome, a rare and brutal form of childhood epilepsy that's typically refractory to standard anticonvulsants.
Full breakdown → - Read · published 2026-05-20Research article PMID 26103030
This is the meta-analysis everyone cites when someone asks whether cannabis actually works for medical conditions. Whiting and colleagues pooled 79 randomized trials covering 6,462 patients across every major indication studied at the time: chronic pain, MS spasticity, chemotherapy nausea, appetite, anxiety, sleep, Tourette syndrome, glaucoma, and psychosis.
Full breakdown →
Browse by condition
- IBD & Crohn's disease
Inflammatory bowel disease research. Cannabis as adjunct therapy for symptom management — pain, appetite, inflammation — and trials around disease-activity outcomes.
- Chronic pain
Cannabis for persistent and neuropathic pain — including back pain, neuropathy, fibromyalgia, and post-surgical pain. The most-studied therapeutic application.
- Anxiety
Cannabinoids — especially CBD — for generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and panic. Heavy attention to the biphasic dose-response curve.
- Multiple sclerosis
Cannabis-based medicine for spasticity, pain, and quality of life in MS. Sativex (nabiximols) is approved for MS spasticity in 25+ countries — the strongest regulatory acceptance to date.
- Epilepsy
Cannabidiol for treatment-resistant epilepsies including Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes. Epidiolex (purified CBD) received FDA approval in 2018.
- Chemo-induced nausea
Cannabinoids for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). Dronabinol and nabilone are FDA-approved for this indication.
- PTSD
Cannabis for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms — nightmare suppression, hyperarousal, sleep. Mixed evidence; growing trial pipeline.
- Cancer
Cannabis as adjunct therapy in oncology — pain, appetite, sleep, nausea. Direct anti-tumor mechanism is preclinical and unproven in humans.
- Sleep disorders
Cannabis and cannabinoids for insomnia, sleep onset, and REM modulation. Patient surveys show heavy use for sleep; controlled trial evidence is thinner than the popular use suggests.