“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 others who are investigating the plant’s potential in pain management. The first, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that a blend of cannabis oil, containing the psychoactive compound THC, as well as CBD and other natural compounds in the plant, outperformed a placebo. The other compared that same proprietary cannabis tincture with opioids. Here, patients were much less likely to have gastrointestinal side effects like constipation, and cannabis offered better relief over 6 months than their painkillers.