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Taking medicinal marijuana to ease pain of fibromyalgia

Question

Assalaamu alaykum, Shaykh. My mother has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and has been suffering from this condition for years now. She has been taking painkillers to ease the pain, but the constant use of painkillers is unfortunately destroying her organs, and she now has a stomach ulcer from the constant use of painkillers. Without it, however, she can barely move and is in severe pain all day. Doctors claim that medicinal marijuana eases the pain of fibromyalgia, and I was wondering what the ruling on this is? Especially CBD hemp oil, which does not have THC (that intoxicates). May Allah bless you, Shaykh.

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

We ask Allah, the Almighty, to grant your mother immediate cure from her illness, for He is the Curer and there is no cure but His.

We advise you to earnestly supplicate Allah as He responds to the supplication of the person in distress and He removes hardship.

Allah says (what means): {Is He [not best] Who responds to the desperate one when he calls upon Him and removes evil and makes you inheritors of the earth? Is there a deity with Allah? Little do you remember.} [Quran 27:62]

Among the beneficial treatment as well is the Ruqyah (healing through Quranic recitation and supplication) from the Quran and the Sunnah; it is useful for all ailments, with the permission of the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth.

If the medicine does not contain an intoxicant and does not cause great harm, then there is no objection to using it, Allah willing. If it contains an intoxicant or causes great harm, then it is forbidden to use it as a treatment, except for a necessity when there is no other suitable remedy that is free from such Islamic prohibitions. In this case, it becomes permissible to use it as a treatment due to the necessity. However, the necessity should be answered proportionately.

The evidence that it is not permissible to use an intoxicant as a medicine is that Taariq ibn Suwayd Al-Ju'fi, may Allah be pleased with him, asked the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) about alcohol, and he forbade him or expressed his hatred that he prepares it. Taariq said, “I only prepare it as a medicine”; thereupon, the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) said, ‘It is not a medicine; it is a disease (in itself).’” [Muslim]

It should be noted that it is permissible to use a medicine that contains an intoxicant if this intoxicant was transformed to a non-intoxicating substance before it is added, because it becomes pure by being transformed, and the description of impurity no longer applies to it.

For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 349819.

Allah knows best.

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