|
 Hospitalization rates for opioid painkiller dependence and abuse
dropped on average 23 percent in states after marijuana was
permitted for medicinal purposes, the analysis found.
Hospitalization rates for opioid overdoses dropped 13 percent on
average.
At the same time, fears that legalization of medical marijuana would
lead to an uptick in cannabis-related hospitalizations proved
unfounded, according to the report in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
“Instead, medical marijuana laws may have reduced hospitalizations
related to opioid pain relievers,” said study author Yuyan Shi, a
public health professor at the University of California, San Diego.
“This study and a few others provided some evidence regarding the
potential positive benefits of legalizing marijuana to reduce opioid
use and abuse, but they are still preliminary,” she said in an
email.
Dr. Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health
and Science University in Portland, was intrigued by the study’s
suggestion that access to cannabis might reduce opioid misuse.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that battling the opioid epidemic
will require a multi-pronged approach and a good deal of
creativity,” Choo, who was not involved in the study, said in an
email. “Could increased liberalization of marijuana be part of the
solution? It seems plausible.”
However, she said, “there is still much we need to understand about
the mechanisms through which marijuana policy may affect opioid use
and harms.”
An estimated 60 percent of Americans now live in the 28 states and
Washington, D.C. where medical marijuana is legal under state law.
Meanwhile, the opioid epidemic - sparked by a quadrupling since 1999
in sales of prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin -
kills 91 Americans a day.
Shi analyzed hospitalization records from 1997 through 2014 for 27
states, nine of which implemented medical marijuana policies. Her
study was the fifth to show declines in opioid use or deaths in
states that allow medical cannabis.
Previous studies reported associations between medical marijuana and
reductions in opioid prescriptions, opioid-related vehicle accidents
and opioid-overdose deaths.
In a 2014 study, Dr. Marcus Bachhuber found deaths from opioid
overdoses fell by 25 percent in states that legalized medical
marijuana.
Since last year, when New York rolled out its medical marijuana
program, Bachhuber has included cannabis in a menu of options he
offers his patients who suffer chronic or severe pain from
neuropathy and HIV/AIDS, he said in a phone interview. Bachhuber, a
professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore
Medical Center in the Bronx, was not involved in the new study.
[to top of second column] |
Many of Bachhuber’s patients ask for help quitting highly addictive
opioids, and some have used marijuana to taper off the prescription
painkillers, he said.
Nonetheless, a 1970 federal law puts cannabis in the same category
as heroin, Schedule 1 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and
Control Act, and finds it has no medicinal value. Consequently,
doctors can only recommend, not prescribe, marijuana, and physicians
who work for the federal government cannot even discuss the weed.
Federal prohibition also has led to severe limitations on marijuana
research.
In January, a National Academies report found conclusive or
substantial evidence that cannabis can effectively treat chronic
pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and spasticity. The report,
written by an independent panel of medical experts, found no
evidence of cannabis overdose deaths.
It did, however, find links between cannabis use and an increased
risk of vehicle accidents as well as the development of
schizophrenia or other psychoses, particularly among the most
frequent users.
Bachhuber lamented the dearth of research on the best ways to use
marijuana as medicine.
“We have information that it works based on the National Academies’
report,” he said. “But we don’t know who it works best for, at what
dosage, for how long.”
Last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the nation’s top
cop, reiterated his concerns about marijuana and heroin, an illegal
opioid.
“I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin
crisis by legalizing marijuana,” he told law enforcement officers in
Virginia, “so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for
another.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2mRVepg Drug and Alcohol Dependence, online
February 21, 2017.
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
