How Cannabis Interacts with Prescription Medications
Updated 4/24/2022
As medical and recreational cannabis continues to be legalized, it’s important to understand how it can interact with prescribed medications. Unfortunately, most doctors have not studied the Endocannabinoid System and therefore, don’t understand how cannabis can play a medicinal role. So, if you ask them if it’s safe to use cannabis while using prescription drugs, their probable default answer will be no (because they are too embarrassed to tell you they don’t know).
For the most part, it is safe to consume cannabis while taking prescription drugs. However, there are some circumstances where mixing both can have negative consequences, especially when taking large amounts of CBD (100mg or more). If you want more in depth scientific explanations, I have provided some useful links below. But a simple rule of thumb based on the latest scientific studies, is to allow a spacing of at least 4 hours between consuming prescription drugs and consuming cannabis.
Project CBD published a short, easy to read primer on this important subject. Please click on this link to read it: Primer on Cannabinoid-Drug Interactions.
The Society of Cannabis Clinicians posted a discussion on this subject in their forum. Please click on this link to read it: SCC Forum.
Lastly, Penn State College of Medicine posted a list of pharmaceutical drugs that interact with cannabinoids. Please click on this link to read it: Penn State. In addition, they have created an interactive app called CANN-DIR. “Some drugs can affect the way others are broken down by the body, which can be problematic in the case of medications with a narrow therapeutic index,” Kent Vrana said. “People may not realize that THC and CBD products have the ability to change the way other drugs are metabolized, and it’s an important conversation for patients and health care providers to have with each other. CANN-DIR can help facilitate those conversations and provide useful information for health care providers when prescribing medications to their patients.” You can access CANN-DIR by clicking on this link.
