Medical Cannabis and Quality of Life: What a Three-Month Pennsylvania Study Found
A 2024 study of adults beginning medical cannabis treatment in Pennsylvania found improvements across several measures of health-related quality of life after three months. The findings included better self-reported physical functioning, emotional well-being, social functioning, energy levels, general health, and bodily pain—but the study’s observational design cannot establish that cannabis caused those changes.
Published in the Journal of Cannabis Research, the study followed 438 adults who had received a physician’s recommendation for medical marijuana and had not previously been regular medical cannabis users. Participants completed interviews before starting treatment and again about three months later. Researchers assessed health-related quality of life using the Short Form-36, a widely used questionnaire covering eight areas of physical and mental functioning.
Participants were most commonly referred for medical cannabis to address anxiety disorders, reported by 61.9% of the sample, or severe, chronic, or intractable pain, reported by 53.6%. The group had an average age of 46.4 years, and 66.4% identified as female.
At the three-month follow-up, participants reported statistically significant gains in all eight areas measured:
- physical functioning
- limitations caused by physical health problems
- emotional well-being
- limitations caused by emotional problems
- bodily pain
- social functioning
- energy and fatigue
- general health
The largest percentage increases appeared in role limitations related to emotional problems, social functioning, and role limitations related to physical health. The study reported smaller gains in physical functioning and general health. Although every change reached statistical significance, the effect sizes varied by measure, meaning the practical importance of the improvements was not identical across all domains.
Age was associated with the degree of change in three areas. Older participants generally showed less improvement than younger participants in physical functioning, limitations related to physical health, and bodily pain. Age did not significantly predict changes in every quality-of-life measure, and the study did not show that younger patients necessarily respond better to cannabis in clinical practice.
The researchers described the project as a prospective, observational, longitudinal study. That distinction is important. Participants were not randomly assigned to cannabis or a placebo group, and there was no comparison group receiving another treatment or no treatment. As a result, the improvements could reflect cannabis use, changes in other treatments, natural fluctuations in symptoms, expectations about treatment, or differences between people who continued in the study and those who did not.
The study also relied on participants’ self-reported outcomes and examined only the first three months of treatment. The sample was predominantly White and female, which limits how confidently the results can be generalized to other populations. The analysis did not determine which cannabis products, doses, cannabinoid ratios, or methods of administration were associated with the reported changes. It also did not provide a full assessment of possible adverse effects.
Health-related quality of life is broader than a single symptom such as pain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes HRQoL as a person’s perceived physical and mental health over time. Measures such as the SF-36 can therefore capture whether a patient is able to carry out daily activities, participate socially, manage emotional demands, and perceive their overall health as improving.
The findings add to a growing but mixed body of evidence on medical cannabis. For chronic pain specifically, a 2024 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality review found low- to moderate-strength evidence that some cannabinoid products may provide small short-term improvements in pain, while also increasing adverse effects such as dizziness, sedation, and nausea. That evidence largely concerns specific cannabinoid formulations and should not automatically be applied to every whole-plant cannabis product.
Overall, the Pennsylvania study suggests that people newly starting medical cannabis reported broad improvements in quality of life over three months. It does not, however, demonstrate that medical cannabis was the cause, establish long-term benefits, or show that it is more effective than established treatments. Randomized studies with longer follow-up, clearer information about products and dosing, more diverse participants, and systematic monitoring of harms will be needed to determine who benefits and under what conditions.
