It’s a feat Australia’s most decorated basketballer describes as her “greatest achievement”.
It’s 2022, and a 41-year-old Lauren Jackson has just scored 30 points to help Australia clinch bronze over Canada in the Women’s Basketball World Cup.
The performance was “vintage” Jackson, the kind those lucky enough to follow her career trajectory had come to expect before she initially retired in 2016.
Only this time — eight years later — the Hall of Famer overcame debilitating chronic pain to make a fairytale return to elite basketball.
“My body has been through hell and back throughout my career,” Jackson says.
“It doesn’t even feel real … I don’t think anyone thought I would get this far.”
By now, it is well publicised that Jackson — at least in part — credits her return from retirement to medicinal cannabis.
For the millions of Australians living with chronic pain, Jackson’s story offers visible hope that similar miracles might be possible elsewhere.
But despite being legal in Australia since 2016, medicinal cannabis remains shrouded in mystery and stigma.
So what does the evidence say about its effectiveness for treating pain, and when is it legal to take it?
100,000 prescriptions written for chronic pain last year
The prescription of medicinal cannabis has increased significantly over the past three years.Chronic pain is now the leading indication for its prescription, with more than 100,000 scripts being written for chronic pain in Australia in 2022.
Many of these patients — like Jackson — have exhausted other options for treatment.
In fact, Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) rules dictate that a patient can only be prescribed medicinal cannabis for chronic pain if they have tried other approved medications without success.
These include drugs such as amitriptyline, pregabalin, and a range of opioids.
Despite a surge in popularity, however, there is a lack of solid evidence to support the effectiveness of medicinal cannabis for treating pain.
That’s according to Professor Jennifer Martin, director of the Australian Centre for Cannabinoid Clinical and Research Excellence, and chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Newcastle.
“Really the only benefit we have seen in some patients is with neuropathic [nerve] pain, which can be really difficult to manage with other therapies,” she says.
