Cannabis Users Report Nearly 50% Short-Term Relief From Headache and Migraine Pain
People using inhaled cannabis to treat headaches and migraines reported roughly 50% reductions in symptom severity, according to an observational study published online in 2019 and later in the Journal of Pain. The findings suggest that cannabis may provide short-term relief for some users, but they do not establish that cannabis caused the improvement or demonstrate how it compares with established migraine treatments.
In the study by Carrie Cuttler and colleagues, researchers analyzed anonymous records from the Strainprint medical cannabis app. Users rated their headache or migraine severity on a 0-to-10 scale before inhaling cannabis and again afterward, generally within four hours.
The dataset included 1,306 medical cannabis users who recorded 12,293 sessions for headaches and 653 users who recorded 7,441 sessions for migraines. A reduction in symptoms was reported in 89.9% of headache sessions and 88.1% of migraine sessions. On average, headache severity fell by 47.3%, while migraine severity fell by 49.6%.
The analysis also identified differences associated with gender and product type. Men reported larger reductions in headache severity than women, and concentrates were linked to greater reductions in headache symptoms than cannabis flower. The researchers did not find that the amount of THC, CBD or cannabis used consistently predicted the size of the immediate symptom reduction.
Because the study examined real-world use in participants’ normal environments, it captured patterns that may be missed in a tightly controlled laboratory trial. However, its design also creates important limitations. Participants chose whether to use cannabis, selected their own products and doses, and reported their own symptoms. There was no placebo or untreated comparison group, and many users may have been especially likely to believe cannabis helped them. The findings therefore show an association between cannabis use and reported symptom relief—not proof that cannabis was responsible for the change.
The study also examined whether repeated use was associated with tolerance. Headache relief became weaker across successive sessions, while users generally reported taking larger doses over time. The pattern was consistent with possible tolerance, although the authors noted that the analysis could not determine whether tolerance was caused by cannabis or by other changes in users’ symptoms and treatment habits. Baseline headache and migraine severity did not increase across sessions, so the data did not show evidence that cannabis itself caused medication-overuse headache.
Earlier evidence was limited. A 2017 review of cannabis for headache disorders concluded that there were not yet enough well-designed clinical trials to support cannabis as an established headache treatment. A separate 2012 randomized crossover trial involving 30 people with medication-overuse headache found that the synthetic cannabinoid nabilone performed better than ibuprofen on several measures, including pain intensity and quality of life. That trial involved a specific patient group and a pharmaceutical cannabinoid, however, so its results cannot be directly generalized to inhaled cannabis products.
More broadly, the National Academies’ 2017 evidence review found substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids can help some adults with chronic pain. That conclusion does not establish equivalent evidence for headaches or migraines, which require condition-specific clinical trials.
Cuttler and her colleagues argued that the app-based findings could help guide future research, particularly placebo-controlled studies that compare defined cannabis preparations with standard treatments. Until those trials are available, the results are best understood as evidence of commonly reported short-term relief among selected cannabis users—not as proof that inhaled cannabis is a proven or risk-free treatment for headache and migraine.
