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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Neuropharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1411631
This article is part of the Research Topic Therapeutic Potential of Cannabinoids: From Health to Disease View all 3 articles

The effects of standardized cannabis products in healthy volunteers and patients: a systematic literature review

Provisionally accepted
Nadia Leen Nadia Leen 1*Mikael Kowal Mikael Kowal 1Albert Batalla Albert Batalla 2Matthijs Bossong Matthijs Bossong 1,2
  • 1 Bedrocan International BV, Clinical Research Unit, Utrecht, Netherlands
  • 2 Department of Psychiatry, UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, Netherlands

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    There is growing recognition of the potential of cannabis to treat various medical conditions and symptoms, such as chronic pain, spasticity, and epilepsy. However, one of the biggest challenges is the assurance of a standardized cannabis product that contains a consistent amount of its main psychoactive substances delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), and which is compliant with predetermined specifications for these compounds. This is crucial not only to ensure consistent cannabis quality and dosage for patients but also to effectively translate research findings into clinical practice. This systematic literature review provides an overview of the effects of standardized cannabis products from Bedrocan, a leading Dutch producer of pharmaceutical-quality standardized medicinal cannabis. Results demonstrate that cannabis administration to healthy volunteers induces dose-dependent acute effects, such as rapidly rising THC and CBD blood concentrations, the subjective experience of high and anxiety, slower reaction time and impaired attention, learning and working memory. Patient studies suggest that treatment with medicinal cannabis reduces pain intensity across a broad range of chronic pain-related medical conditions. Medicinal cannabis showed a mild safety profile, with minor and transient side effects, such as feeling high, coughing and mental confusion. The strength of acute effects, the experience of side effects and the drop-out rate in patient studies may depend on cannabis dose, cannabis composition (CBD:THC ratio), and cannabis use history of participants. Safety and efficacy of standardized medicinal cannabis products should be further investigated in randomized clinical trials with sufficient sample size, with particular focus on cannabis dose and composition, age and differences between males and females.

    Keywords: THC - tetrahydrocannabinol, CBD - cannabidiol, Cannabis, Bedrocan, Bedrocan®

    Received: 03 Apr 2024; Accepted: 30 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Leen, Kowal, Batalla and Bossong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Nadia Leen, Bedrocan International BV, Clinical Research Unit, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.