Cannabis against headaches-a star reportage

Tomke* sits in a tailoring seat on the green couch in your living room. In front of her stands a bong that is as large as her upper body. With experienced handles, she lights the water pipe, sucks the smoke bubbling and then inhaled it by train. She puts her head back, stops the air for a few seconds and breaks out. Tomke kits. The 29-year-old smokes around a gram of cannabis every day.

Tomke actually means differently. She doesn’t want to read her real name here. For fear that someone would condemn them for smoke, stamp them. In the past, Tomke often drove across the Dutch border to buy grass illegally. Almost an hour’s drive is her hometown Emden, a small East Frisian town with around 50,000 inhabitants and above all known as the birthplace of Otto Waalkes, from the next Dutch coffee shop. Today five minutes walk to the next pharmacy. Because: Tomke you have been getting cannabis on a prescription for a year, completely legal. You don’t notice it to the woman who has been spoiled, but she has been chronically ill since her birth, suffering from tormenting headaches. Nausea, vomiting and paralysis are also part of their everyday life. The smoke should alleviate her suffering.

Patients in Germany have been able to receive medical cannabis on prescription for more than two and a half years. According to the German drug examination institute, the pharmacies processed around 95,000 recipes of cannabis -containing preparations and unprocessed flowers in 2018, almost 68,000 more than in the previous year. Tomke receives twelve recipes every year. The reasons for the disease for the use of medical marijuana can be very different.

It is most often consumed to relieve pain, says Samir Rabbata, spokesman for the Federal Medical Association. 69 percent of patients indicate this reason. According to Rabbata, there are further reasons for use with eleven percent, nausea and vomiting with four percent, depression with three percent, loss of appetite, intestinal diseases, tourette, epilepsy, movement and sleep disorders with one percent.

However, the pain -relieving effect of cannabis is also questioned. Charly Gaul, specialist in neurology and general secretary of the German migraine and headache society, explains that the use of cannabis is a rarity in headache patients. There is no scientifically viable evidence that cannabis use is effective in migraines. The majority of the patients end the use of indebtedness, he says.

Tomke explains that although the headache does not disappear, it can sleep better. In addition, she gets along better with the disease, can relax and feel less stressed. Cannabis consumption help her accept the migraines. And the medical US magazine “” reports of a Canadian study from 2019, which shows that cannabis has the potential to reduce headaches and migraines.

For this purpose, the short and long-term effects of marijuana were researched in headaches and migraines. The evaluation includes data from 12,293 sessions. The subjects have logged the state of intoxication using an app. According to the research report, it was found that the consumption of the flowers reduces the severity of the headache and migraines by about 50 percent. However, it is also pointed out that the effectiveness decreases over time, since the patient develop a kind of tolerance for the active ingredients.

However, the pain is only a minor symptom, says Tomke. In addition, nausea and vomiting are part of their everyday life. Cannabis consumption suggests your appetite again. With a body size of 1.60 meters, it weighs only 44 kilos. Tomke is so thin that the collarbone and ribs are emerging under her clothing. This petite person laughs out of full neck, but you almost have the feeling that you stand next to a Hamburg port worker, it sounds so loudly through the room.

Shortly after their birth, doctors diagnosed migraines at Tomke. Tortuous screams have set their parents and hospital staff on alert. White bright light, nasty noises and unpleasant smells can be triggered for migraine attacks. A well -known pre -symptom is the visual aura, explains Charly Gaul. This is expressed by a limited field of vision and flickering. An ascending half -side emotional disorder on the leg, arm or face can also be part of the unpleasant side effect. Occasionally, motor weaknesses and word finding disorders would also occur.

Tomke knows all of this only too well. It often happens at night – pulsating headaches. Then Tomke runs to the toilet, where her stomach says goodbye to dinner. Sometimes she can’t hurry into the bathroom because she doesn’t feel her legs. Unfortunately, Tomke often has paralysis, she says. She also knows problems with speaking well. “Most cannot imagine what it means to have migraines. Life is different.

I had to cancel three training courses because I had too many absenteeism due to the pain“she explains, “but smoking smoke makes a lot more bearable.” There were times when she would have liked to give up, she says and pauses briefly. At the moment she does not have a professional activity. She takes care of the three-room apartment, likes to go golfing, meet friends and spend a lot of time with her partner. “He too had to get used to the situation first,” says Tomke as she serves East Frisian tea in style. In the meantime, the two have been a couple for ten years. The smoke doesn’t bother him.

“Insured persons with a serious illness are entitled to supply with cannabis in the form of dried flowers or extracts,” says Samira Rabbata from the Federal Medical Association. The prerequisite is that a recognized medical performance is not available that in individual cases there is a reasonable assessment of the attending doctor or that there is a not removable view of a noticeable positive influence on the course of the disease or on serious symptoms. A corresponding application will then be forwarded to the health insurance company, which will finally decide on a permit.

A year and a half ago, Tomke finally got the decision: from then on she was officially a legal potential and so her pharmacist became a “dealer”. “At the beginning it was strange to get my grass legally and without adrenaline kick from a stink-normal pharmacy,” she says with a broad grin. In the meantime, however, it is completely normal, she is already welcomed by name as soon as she opens the shop door. Then she will be presented with her green medicine according to the recipe.

The little white can with the inscription “Cannabis Flos” looks inconspicuous at first glance. Tomke turns off the lid. The dusty-looking, sticky plant distributes its sweet and biting smell in the room. Tomke fiddles a small part of the can and puts it in a handy mill. She grinds the grass small, gets it out and mixes it on a folded sheet of paper with a little tobacco. Then she stuffs the mixture into the bong head and lights it.

A scene that she cannot imagine outside of her three-room apartment. “Although I may, I will not smoke grass in public. Not even rolled up in a joint,” explains Tomke. “Especially in a small town like Emden, smoke is a rare picture for the long -established East Frisian. I just don’t want to annoy anyone.”

Transparent note: This report was first published in 2019.