What occurred in states after medical marijuana legal guidelines have been handed? Did opioid overdoses go up, keep the identical, or go down?
Hundreds of thousands of individuals in the USA have been identified with an opioid use dysfunction, and greater than 80 Individuals die every day from opioid overdose. The place is that this coming from? Most “new heroin customers began out misusing opioid prescription painkillers.” That is essential as a result of greater than 200 million opioid painkiller prescriptions are nonetheless written yearly. Did you catch that quantity? 200 million prescriptions yearly, “a quantity carefully approximating the complete grownup inhabitants in the USA.” That’s unbelievable.
“‘Whenever you see one thing just like the opioid dependancy disaster blossoming in so many states round this nation, the very last thing we needs to be doing is encouraging individuals’ to smoke hashish, [White House Spokesperson Sean] Spicer informed reporters.” However, if opioid dependancy begins with individuals taking prescription ache tablets, perhaps hashish would scale back the issue by providing a substitute painkiller. Alternatively, perhaps hashish would act like a “gateway” drug or “stepping stone” to tougher medicine, probably making the opioid epidemic worse, as I focus on in my video Marijuana Legalization and the Opioid Epidemic.
Nicely, first, does hashish work? “Is it a very efficient drug for ache that’s arbitrarily stigmatized by many and criminalized by the federal authorities? Or is it with none medical utility, its advocates hiding behind a display screen of misplaced (or intentionally deceptive) compassion for the in poor health?” The official place of the American Medical Affiliation is that marijuana “has no scientifically confirmed, presently accepted medical use for stopping or treating any illness,” however what does the science say?
“Regardless of the widespread use of opioids, 50% – 80% of superior most cancers sufferers die with unmet pain-relief wants.” So, including hashish could assist. Certainly, double-blind, placebo-controlled medical trials have discovered that hashish compounds do produce ache aid, “equal to reasonable doses of codeine,” an opioid used to deal with gentle to reasonable ache, however in the event you’re dying from most cancers, don’t you need the great things? Why not simply crank up the morphine?
If you happen to wished, you may put somebody in coma and erase all their ache, however there’s a really actual drawback with such excessive doses of opiates: Right here you might be, on the finish of life, surrounded by family members, however you’re so doped up you possibly can’t even say goodbye. That is the place hashish could assist. It could enable sufferers to drop down the opiate dose a bit with out compromising ache management.
That’s what many report, anyway. If you happen to have a look at New England, for instance, which may be regarded as floor zero for the opioid epidemic, in only one yr, “there have been sufficient opioids disbursed from Maine pharmacies in 2014 to provide each particular person within the state with a 16-day provide.” What are they doing up there?
Among the many New Englanders surveyed who have been on opioids, nonetheless, most claimed “they diminished their [opioid] use since they began MC,” medical hashish. Some additionally diminished their use of antidepressants, alcohol, anti-anxiety medicines, migraine meds, and sleeping tablets. Forty % stated they have been in a position to scale back their opioid use “lots,” as you possibly can see at 3:16 in my video.
Hashish use could even scale back the usage of crack cocaine. It could appear unusual to provide medicine to drug addicts, but when individuals even make a partial swap from extra to much less dangerous medicine, total hurt could also be diminished. So, what occurred after medical marijuana legal guidelines have been handed? Did opioid overdoses go up, keep the identical, or go down?
They went down.
“Medical hashish legal guidelines are related to considerably decrease state-level opioid overdose mortality charges,” a few 25 % decrease fee of overdose deaths. “The hanging implication is that medical marijuana legal guidelines…could signify a promising method for stemming” the opioid overdose epidemic. “If true, this discovering upsets the applecart of standard knowledge concerning the general public well being implications of marijuana legalization and medicinal usefulness.” On the one hand, we’ve the AMA saying hashish isn’t medically useful, however, however, if individuals are getting sufficient profit utilizing it to allow them to lower down on their prescriptions, then clearly one thing is happening.
What about different prescribed drugs? As you possibly can see at 4:37 in my video, as soon as medical marijuana legal guidelines have been handed, fewer individuals have been filling prescriptions—and never solely fewer prescriptions for painkillers, however fewer prescriptions for anti-anxiety medicine, antidepressants, anti-nausea medicine, antipsychotics, anti-seizure medicine, and sleeping tablets. If all states adopted medical marijuana legal guidelines, that would save round half a billion {dollars} a yr. However, the half-billion {dollars} taxpayers would save, is the half-billion bucks drug firms would lose, so it’s no surprise Massive Pharma is freaking out. Why do you assume pharmaceutical firms, together with the makers of OxyContin and Vicodin, have been main sponsors of the marijuana prohibition foyer, making an attempt to cease legalization? “Different main sponsors of marijuana prohibition have been the beer business, police unions, and the non-public jail business.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Greater than 200 million opioid painkiller prescriptions are written yearly regardless of the analysis of thousands and thousands in the USA with an opioid use dysfunction and greater than 80 Individuals dying daily from opioid overdose.
- May hashish act as a gateway to tougher medicine, like opioids, or would possibly it scale back opioid dependancy by providing a substitute painkiller to prescription tablets?
- The American Medical Affiliation’s official place is that marijuana “has no scientifically confirmed, presently accepted medical use for stopping or treating any illness,” however research have discovered that hashish compounds produce ache aid “equal to reasonable doses of codeine,” an opioid used to deal with gentle to reasonable ache.
- On the finish of life, hashish could enable sufferers to scale back opiate doses with out compromising ache aid such that they might not be in such a drug-induced stupor that they can’t say goodbye.
- Most New Englanders taking opioids claimed they diminished their opioid use after beginning medical hashish, and a few additionally diminished use of alcohol, antidepressants, sleeping tablets, and anti-anxiety and migraine medicines. Hashish may additionally scale back use of crack cocaine.
- After medical marijuana legal guidelines have been handed, opioid overdoses went down, a few 25 % decrease fee of opioid overdose deaths, and fewer individuals have been filling prescriptions—not just for painkillers, but additionally for anti-anxiety medicine, antidepressants, anti-nausea medicine, antipsychotics, anti-seizure medicine, and sleeping tablets.
- About half a billion {dollars} could be saved yearly if medical marijuana legal guidelines have been adopted throughout the USA, however the half-billion taxpayers would save is the half-billion drug firms would lose.
I’ve an entire treasure chest of hashish movies, which you’ll see on-line or in a digital DVD.
Try:
In well being,
Michael Greger, M.D.
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