Earlier this year a paper published in Health Affairs discussed the reasons why patients seek out medical cannabis. We spoke with one of the authors, Kevin F. Boehnke, PhD, a researcher in anesthesiology, about the findings that chronic pain accounted for the majority of all patient-reported qualifying conditions under which US patients sought medical marijuana.

We also discuss other topics related to medical cannabis in the United States, as well as the kinds of future research that would be helpful to understanding this issue.