Medical Cannabis Patients Most Often Seek Help for Chronic Pain, Anxiety and PTSD

A 2024 analysis of more than 81,000 people who obtained medical cannabis cards found that chronic pain, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were the most frequently recorded primary qualifying conditions. The study, published in Population Medicine, also found that many patients reported additional health conditions alongside the condition used to qualify for a medical card.

Researchers analyzed anonymized data from Leafwell, a medical cannabis telehealth platform, covering patients who registered during 2022 in 32 U.S. states. The database included 81,433 new patients. Of those, 75,904 reported one of the 15 most common primary qualifying conditions examined in the analysis.

Chronic pain was the leading qualifying condition

Chronic pain was listed as the primary qualifying condition for 24,340 patients, or 32.1% of the group included in the main analysis. Anxiety followed at 26.8%, while PTSD accounted for 11.2%.

The remaining conditions included headache, depression, insomnia, cancer, arthritis and muscle spasms, among others. The distribution varied significantly by age, sex and race or ethnicity. For example, chronic pain was reported less often as the primary condition among Hispanic patients than among other groups, while insomnia was more common among patients younger than 21.

The patient population was nearly evenly divided by sex: 51.1% were male and 48.9% were female. About 65% were between 21 and 49 years old, the average age was 40.1, and 25.4% were at least 50. White non-Hispanic patients made up 71.5% of the sample, followed by Black non-Hispanic patients at 10.4% and Hispanic patients at 8.4%.

Many patients reported more than one condition

Among the 75,904 patients included in the primary-condition analysis, 42,517—56%—reported at least one additional condition related to their potential cannabis use. Nearly 26% reported at least three conditions, while smaller proportions reported four or five.

Anxiety and chronic pain were the most common secondary conditions. Among patients listing a third condition, insomnia was the most frequent, followed by chronic pain. Insomnia also led the fourth-ranked conditions, while PTSD was the most common fifth-ranked condition.

These results suggest that a medical cannabis patient’s qualifying condition may not capture the full range of health concerns they hope to address. The findings may be useful to clinicians when discussing cannabis, other medications and possible interactions, particularly when pain, sleep problems and mental-health symptoms occur together.

What the study does—and does not—show

The analysis was cross-sectional and descriptive. It shows which conditions patients reported when seeking medical cannabis certification; it does not demonstrate that cannabis effectively treats those conditions, nor does it establish that cannabis caused any improvement.

That distinction is particularly important for anxiety and PTSD. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says evidence for cannabis or cannabinoids in PTSD remains limited, while research on anxiety is still relatively small and condition-specific. For chronic pain, evidence suggests potential modest benefits in some settings, but results vary by product, dose and type of pain. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has reported stronger evidence for some therapeutic uses, including chronic pain in adults, but those conclusions do not mean every cannabis product is equally effective or safe.

The study’s authors also noted important limitations. The data came from a commercial telehealth platform rather than a representative national sample, and additional conditions were self-reported rather than independently confirmed by physicians. State rules also differ, meaning a qualifying condition may not always reflect the patient’s broader reason for seeking cannabis.

Even with those limitations, the study provides a detailed snapshot of people entering medical cannabis programs in 2022. Its central message is less that cannabis has been proven to treat a particular list of diseases than that many patients approach medical cannabis with overlapping concerns—especially pain, anxiety, sleep difficulties and trauma-related symptoms. Understanding that complexity can help support more careful, individualized conversations about potential benefits, risks and alternatives.