New research shows a decline in the use of opioid painkillers in U.S. states that allow people to treat pain with medical marijuana, affirming the fears of Big Pharma who have been vigorously seeking to frustrate efforts to legalize the herb.
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“After the implementation of a medical marijuana law, there appears to be less opioid use, at least among young and middle-aged adults”, study lead author June Kim said.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the study provides further proof that people may opt for medical marijuana instead of opioid painkillers if they are legalized.
In the study, the researchers analyzed information from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System database.
Medical marijuana is now legal, with varying degrees of restriction, in 25 states plus the District of Columbia. About one-quarter (25.4 percent) happened in states that had passed medical marijuana laws, but hadn’t yet implemented them.
Nevertheless, the Washington Post wrote on September 2 that “an unprecedented number of states will vote for marijuana legalization” on November 8, 2016.
In addition to calling out drug makers on their dangerously addictive painkillers and providing research that shows medical marijuana can help curb opioid use after auto wrecks, there is a lot of backlash against the government for voicing biased data that suggests marijuana should remain in the same drug scheduling as heroin, meth, or cocaine, according to Forbes.
At a time when the United States is facing an opioid epidemic, medical marijuana is now legal in 25 states and the District of Columbia.
In March, federal health officials issued new guidelines for opioid prescriptions in an effort to curb the crisis, urging doctors to largely avoid prescribing highly addictive painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin when treating patients for chronic pain. It’s possible that future studies may find reductions in the prevalence of opioid use in older age groups, Kim suggested. For example, Science Daily reported on September 14 that the October issue of Medical Care released numbers that stated the prescription opioid abuse epidemic now costs Americans $78.5 billion per year. He was critical of the study, calling it “a bit of a mess”. State policies regarding opioids could also be at play, he pointed out.
Furthermore, the argument that marijuana legalization is a “gateway drug” for youth is also being put to rest.
Hockenberry added that “any benefits of medical marijuana need to be balanced against the negative effects of marijuana, which are not trivial”. This includes five states that will vote for recreational marijuana and another four states that will vote for legalizing medical cannabis. “But on the other hand, they could have offsetting effects on other risky behaviors including impaired driving”, Saloner said. Medical marijuana laws, the authors concluded, are “associated with reductions in opioid positivity among 21- to 40-year-old fatally injured drivers and may reduce opioid use and overdose”. “Other studies since ours have reached similar conclusions”.
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HealthDay News also quoted Brendan Saloner, an assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, saying that the sample of the study “is not necessarily generalizable to the population as a whole”.
