For four years, Martin Mogensen has been unable to be prescribed with medicinal cannabis as a form of pain relief from dystonia. As of December 7th he is now able to receive a regular prescription of medicinal cannabis from his local doctor in Odense Denmark.
Amy Holloway
Martin has struggled with pain from dystonia throughout his life, with the first symptoms of dystonia appearing when he was just seven years of age. By the time Martin was 15 dystonia had full control of his body and life, with Martin losing all control of muscle function in his body.
Dystonia is a disorder which affects the movement of the body, it affects the person's muscles in which the muscles contract uncontrollably. Because of these extreme muscle contractions, people living with dystonia feel constant pain in their bodies. This pain can be detrimental to the person's quality of life.
Fifteen years ago Martin underwent Deep Brain Stimulation, this surgery has controlled his violent muscle contractions and drastically improved his quality of life, however he still lives with chronic pain everyday.
“Deep Brain Stimulation is an operation on the brain and on the electrodes that cut off the negative muscle movements. As long as this pacemaker is on and connected to my brain I have control of my whole body, the only thing that I need now is pain relief, ” Martin explained.
Martin previously was unable to find medication which gave him effective pain relief for his condition. All other prescriptions were unreasonable for Martin, as he is sensitive to medicine. Martin suffered from severe negative side effects from the prescriptions drugs that were prescribed by doctors.
After decades of agonizing pain, Martin started researching medicines trying to find some form of relief for his pain. Four years ago Martin watched a documentary on medicinal cannabis as pain relief. Since then Martin uses cannabis regularly with a vaporiser, he has personally seen tremendous changes in pain relief since using cannabis.
“I have more energy, sleep better, more clear through the day... the ordinary things get tedious when you have to deal with a lot of pain everyday. If you are in a lot of pain your day will be kind of short, it drains your life quality. Cannabis has brought me back to life.”
Cannabis Stigma
There is a general stigma in society which is associated with Cannabis use. However according to Danish medicinal cannabis doctors the largest recipients of medicinal cannabis in Denmark are 60 to 70 year old women, showing that the older generation are curious in trying out cannabis as a source of pain relief. Martin believes that society’s views on cannabis are slowly changing and people are opening up to the idea of cannabis as a form of pain relief.
“I would say four years back there was a big stigma, but its beginning to change. It doesn’t mean that all doctors are open because they all want scientific evidence. Because the doctors have to take full responsibility for the treatment of patients, ” Martin added.
“A lot of doctors only look at the main diseases for cannabis prescription. When I talk to doctors I say I have dystonia AND I have pain. My dystonia is treated but my pain is untreated. There is no evidence on dystonia and cannabis, but I say to doctors that’s not what we are talking about... we are talking about pain relief.”
Cannabis laws and regulations in Denmark
Currently in Denmark there is a four year trial which allows doctors to legally prescribe cannabis to patients for pain relief. To be able to get a prescription of cannabis you have to have indications of:
Painful spasms caused by multiple sclerosis
Painful spasms caused by spinal cord damage
Nausea after chemotherapy, or
Neuropathic pain, i.e. pain due to a disease of the brain, spinal cord or nerves.
Danish doctors are still cautious about prescribing cannabis and many are not willing to prescribe cannabis to patients. Charlotte Uggerhøj Anderson, a clinical pharmacologist at the Aarhus University Hospital, explained the scientific research behind cannabis as pain relief and the reasons for doctors reluctance to prescribe.
“Cannabis has gained the authorities approvement as they think their might be a positive risk-benefit affect in a certain population of patients. It can be narrowed down to patients with specifically multiple sclerosis, in all other diseases in which pain is a problem we don’t have studies to show that THC or CBD is really helpful.”
Medicinal prescription of Cannabis
One of the main problems with prescribing cannabis to patients is the many different components of the cannabis plant, such as THC or CBD. This means that it's hard to know the exact effects and side effects from all the different strains and sources.
Charlotte states, “If we get more studies in the field of cannabis to show that it works, of course I think the doctors will take it in, but I think for many doctors they will insist more knowledge about the product before they start prescribing it. I think we will have a great problem with the cannabis products because they differ very much from traditional way of looking at medication. For each product you have to know how it works.”
“Most importantly we don’t have studies showing all these new plant-derived or plant-based cannabis products which are not approved by authorities. We need more studies to show that they have an effect in pain.”
People who are suffering from chronic pain want to be prescribed medicinal cannabis by a doctor because of the unknown when buying from the black-market. When you receive a prescription you know exactly what strain of cannabis you are getting and what side effects that this prescription may have.
Martin explains his reasons for the need of medicinal cannabis.
“My main reason to get a prescription was because I want to know how it's grown, its strength, all aspects of the medication, just like other medication you have certain controls. On the black-market you can get anything such as cheap hemp, that’s why I refused to use black-market. I want to know the product that I buy at the drugstore is the same every time, and safe.”
Charlotte also states, “if people could get CBD oils from a place that is controlled by authorities that would reduce the frequency of people getting oils which contains other substances than what they thought.”
Martin is currently on Cannabis Danmark´s advisory patients board, he wants to spread the word and educate others about medicinal cannabis. Martin urges politicians to change the laws.
"Legalize, listen to the patients, they want this and not the alternative because it affects their everyday life. It's not very pleasant to go to the black-market and be a criminal just to have a normal life. It should be ordinary.”