As many people know we are in the midst of an epidemic of opiate overdoses. From the CDC:
Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999,1 and so have sales of these prescription drugs.2 From 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 people have died in the U.S. from overdoses related to prescription opioids.1
Opioid prescribing continues to fuel the epidemic. Today, at least half of all U.S. opioid overdose deaths involve a prescription opioid.1 In 2014, more than 14,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription opioids.
It has been observed that states that have legal medical cannabis have significantly lower rates of opiate overdoses. This is not a statistically insignificant number; it is in the range of 25%. From JAMA:
Results: States with medical marijuana laws had a 24.8 percent lower average annual opioid overdose death rate compared to states without such laws. In 2010, that translated to about 1,729 fewer deaths than expected. The years after implementation of medical marijuana laws also were associated with lower overdose death rates that generally got stronger over time: year 1 (-19.9 percent), year 2 (-25.2 percent), year 3 (-23.6 percent), year 4 (-20.2 percent), year 5 (-33.7 percent) and year 6 (-33.3 percent).
Many theories have been bandied about regarding why overdoses are so much lower. Does cannabis potentiate opiate pain relievers allowing lower doses? Is it analgesic on its own? Two researchers decided to study this phenomenon, and have found a startling link between the reduction in the use of certain categories of prescription medication and the use of cannabis. It proves, from an epidemiological standpoint, that people are using cannabis to replace prescription medication. Big Pharma, along with law enforcement and the prison industry, and to a lesser extent, the beer and alcohol industry, are the biggest supporters of continued prohibition. While they may claim that they are doing it “for the children,” if you follow the money, legal cannabis is having a major impact on prescription drug sales.
From the Washington Post:
Now a new study, released in the journal Health Affairs, validates these findings by providing clear evidence of a missing link in the causal chain running from medical marijuana to falling overdoses. Ashley and W. David Bradford, a daughter-father pair of researchers at the University of Georgia, scoured the database of all prescription drugs paid for under Medicare Part D from 2010 to 2013.
The researchers have found that physicians are prescribing fewer drugs in the following areas: Pain, nausea, anxiety, psychosis, seizures, sleep disorders, depression and spasticity. The article has an excellent chart showing the decreases for these categories (DKos will not allow me to imbed the image). One category shows an increase - glaucoma drugs. Medications that are not usually associated with medical cannabis showed no changes:
So as a sanity check, the Bradfords ran a similar analysis on drug categories that pot typically is not recommended for — blood thinners, anti-viral drugs and antibiotics. And on those drugs, they found no changes in prescribing patterns after the passage of marijuana laws.
No doubt, some will argue that people are now self-medicating to poorer outcomes. I personally don’t believe it. The use of cannabis has completely obviated my use of dangerous and addictive benzodiazepines as a sleep aid. Though I shouldn’t say “never” because I don’t know the future, I have no intention of using benzos again. A non-toxic substance works better.
Many people believe that cannabis and non-psychoactive hemp were originally banned to serve the interests of the lumber, cotton and chemical industries. Now there is proof of the self-serving financial interests of pharmaceutical companies in their continued support for prohibition. And it is causing thousands of deaths annually that can be avoided through legalization.