For a growing number of long COVID patients, cannabis has emerged as an accessible, cost-effective option for managing pain.
Long COVID, Briefly Explained
Before getting into cannabis as a potential treatment, it helps to define long COVID itself. Most people are familiar with standard COVID symptoms, but according to The Washington Post, “the blood vessels of our brains are lined with endothelial cells, which have angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors, a type of protein that the coronavirus latches onto. This causes such cells to become inflamed, which harms the blood-brain-barrier, inducing swelling and resulting injury.” Long COVID diagnoses continue climbing, even as treatment options are still being worked out. Patients report symptoms lingering anywhere from weeks to months to years after their initial exposure.
“Primarily, what we’re seeing is long-term cognitive consequences,” says cannabis clinician Dr. Mikhail Kogan, who teaches at George Washington University and authored Medical Marijuana: Dr. Kogan’s Evidence-Based Guide to the Health Benefits of Cannabis and CBD. “Patients present with cognitive decline, and more severe cases present with outright dementia.” Among the symptoms he lists as common: mood disorders like depression, anxiety, and insomnia, plus pain, such as my migraines (which don’t help with anxiety, depression, or insomnia, you can imagine), along with hair loss, brain fog, and shifts in taste and smell. Some patients see these symptoms appear seemingly at random, while for others it looks more like the SARS CoV-2 virus reactivated conditions they were already predisposed to but hadn’t shown clearly before. “What happens a lot is that we uncover other problems when we start working with long COVID patients because we find that they’ve had other problems going on for a long time, but they were very mild, so nobody paid enough attention.”
According to that same Washington Post report, “while there are instances of older people getting dementia after exposure, these neurological injuries usually take place in younger folks, between the ages of 20 and 50, who never needed hospitalization. Eventually, the symptoms resolve for some people. But for others, they’re still reeling from the ongoing destruction.”
Where Marijuana and Hemp Products Fit as a Treatment
High Times profiled David, a 30-year-old who contracted COVID in January 2020 and later developed long COVID symptoms, eventually turning to cannabis for relief. “Over the past three years, we have realized a large accumulation of things wrong with us that just weren’t issues before. I have trouble breathing in intense heat and cold and I have a lot of coughing fits. Early results are pointing towards lung scarring. I also have Sleep Apnea, and my brain feels like it [has] aged 10-20 years. I have a horrible short-term memory now. I hurt a lot and am often exhausted,” David told High Times reporters, describing what he and his partner have been through.
Long COVID cost both David and his partner their jobs. After leaving his position in consumer and fan services at LEGO, David picked up occasional work in the video game industry and credits cannabis with helping him regain some stability. “It helps keep me focused or at least my mind off negative thoughts brought on by long COVID. For me, but much more so for my partner, it helps settle nausea. My partner literally wouldn’t be able to hold down the first meal of the day for a time without taking an edible to help settle their stomach. And sleep, oh do I enjoy actually getting to sleep again since becoming a heavier cannabis user,” David says.
One Treatment Addressing Multiple Symptoms at Once
No single prescription drug on the market addresses as many long COVID symptoms simultaneously as cannabis does, according to Dr. Kogan. “Almost no patients present with one symptom, everybody presents with a package. And that package will usually include three to five symptoms. Cannabis is almost the only treatment I can think of that targets all of the symptoms. If a patient comes in with migraines, insomnia, anxiety, and nausea, it’s four medications versus cannabis.” He says “CBD is the first line, but for most pain you want a little bit of CBG in the mix. Noting that this is based on experience, and more research is needed,” he adds that “CBG is very effective for chronic neuropathic pain when it’s specifically in the settings of anxiety and depression.”
The Case for More Cannabis Research
Cannabis and hemp products are showing real promise as an alternative treatment for long COVID, but broader research is still needed to fully legitimize their use. That research remains hard to fund, largely because the federal government continues to classify marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
The US isn’t the only place this research is happening, though. In the UK, the NHS Research Ethics Committee and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency signed off on one of the world’s first scientific studies examining cannabis as a long COVID treatment. Funding comes from Drug Science, the NGO owned by David Nutt. Drug Science CEO David Badcock, speaking to High Times after the study’s phase two trials wrapped, said “It’s a feasibility study and we’re half-way through it so I can’t give you any results, but what I can tell you, is that those patients seem to be responding pretty well. There’s no drop out, which is great for a feasibility study. We now have over 3,000 patients who are submitting their data every month to us. What we see through that is that there is a statistically significant improvement in people’s health outcomes since they’ve been prescribed medical cannabis,”
Dr. Kogan strikes an optimistic note on outcomes: “Most of our patients recover. And the reason they recover is that we don’t look at this the way medicine does. We don’t just prescribe particular treatment, what we say is let’s try to find out why you have these conditions. Let’s try to fix what’s underneath the symptoms.” That approach leans on the brain’s neuroplasticity — its capacity to adapt, change, and heal over time. Long COVID has produced plenty of difficult stories, but between emerging research and patient accounts like David’s, there’s a real case for cautious optimism about recovery.
