Should I try cannabis for my back pain?

It's a question spine surgeon Richard Price says he gets at least several times a day from patients who come into his clinic.

When Price finally dived into the evidence several years ago, he found there were not many high quality studies, even though chronic pain is one of the most common reasons people turn to medical marijuana.

"Anecdotally, [people] say cannabis works great," says Price, an assistant professor of neurological surgery at UC Davis. "It's the only thing that helps them sleep at night, the only thing that takes the edge off."

This is why findings from a pair of major clinical trials in Europe that evaluated cannabis for low back pain — the leading cause of disability worldwide — have caught the attention of Price and other

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