Posted on 08/26/2014 11:04:45 PM PDT by Ken H
One unexpected benefit of medical marijuana legislation appears to be a decrease in painkiller overdoses, perhaps because some chronic pain patients are turning to cannabis instead of powerful opioid drugs.
In states with laws legalizing medical marijuana, new research shows there are nearly 25 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses. Opioid painkiller overdoses are a growing problem nationwide. More than 16,500 Americans died of opioid drug overdoses in 2010, and the numbers continue to rise.
Although a casual relationship hasn’t been proven, there appears to be a significant association between marijuana legislation and a fall in overdose deaths.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania reported that in states that enacted medical cannabis laws between 1999 and 2010, there was a 24.8 percent lower annual opioid overdose death rate, compared to states without medical marijuana laws. The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health
(Excerpt) Read more at healthline.com ...
and another from a few years before
This allows my neighbor with MS to treat her debilitating pain without getting "stoned".
There are analgesic components in pot that are completely separate from the components that get a person stoned. These components vaporize at under 300 degrees; the psychoactive components come out at OVER 300 degress.
It is a lot more complex than that, but I am heartened that there is now study in this area. To see my neihbor suffer makes me sad. It takes her a good 5 minutes just to get into her car ever day.
But if you had read any of the studies that were done about second hand smoke they were done that way. Just like the primary studies done on smoking. They scoured death certificates and even if a person had died of pneumonia or heart disease they were thrown into the smoking caused it category. You have to have been paying attention to the longitudinal studies
At this point, none.
And I am open to the possibility that this might not even be the case.
But it does seem reasonable to suppose that it would, indeed, be the case.
It is very hard to argue with the proposition that many of our lawmakers, at both the state and national levels, are chiefly animated by self-interest (often masquerading as "the public interest").
The drug laws are not didactic unless one is studying the field of corrupt legislation.
I believe it is reasonable to assert that laws proscribing drug usage are intended to instruct the general public as to what is and is not socially acceptable behavior--even if those writing the laws are often not shining exaamples of high moral character, themselves.
The problem there is not the proximate cause of death - pneumonia, heart disease - but the attribution of those proximate causes to second-hand smoke. In the current study, opioid overdose is the clear-cut proximate cause of death, which both the article and the research paper are careful to NOT say was caused by availability of legal medical marijuana.
That might work to keep minority behavior (e.g., heroin or meth use) in the minority - but with over 40% of Americans having used pot in their lives and over 50% favoring legalization, that particular flavor of toothpaste is well out of the tube.
pot propaganda BS.
how about the driving death increase (30%).
how about pot use deaths?
how about the harder drugs from pot use.
how about the loser stoners on public assistance (duuuuude) increase?
how much of this is because OBAMACARE IS TOO EXPENSIVE?
Granted tha the opioids were the proximate cause of death.... Agreed that the headline does not fully match the report.(not a new phenomenon).
My point was simply that we need to be careful in the conclusions we draw... Because of the time frame this study covers, I can posit any number of reasons that opioid deaths had decreased.... not just the availability of medical marijuana.
Where did you get that figure? According to post #14 there was a decrease.
how about pot use deaths?
A lethal dose of pot is 240 joints.
how about the harder drugs from pot use.
Alcohol and tobacco are "gateway drugs" in the same way pot is. The simplest explanation for such "gateways" is the some people like to use drugs and they find alcohol, tobacco, and pot before they find the other stuff.
how about the loser stoners on public assistance (duuuuude) increase?
Assumes that people responsible enough to avoid pot when it's illegal will suddenly become irresponsible enough to not only use pot but get addicted and lose their jobs when it's legal. Sounds unlikely - is that YOUR plan?
how much of this is because OBAMACARE IS TOO EXPENSIVE?
How much of what?
If that were the case, then you should be seeing more opioid deaths in medical mj states vs non-medical mj states. How do explain the numbers which show the opposite?
A January 2014 CBS poll does, indeed, show a bare majority of Americans--51 percent--in favor of our legalizing marijuana. This is a bit less than the 58 percent shown in a slightly earlier poll, by Gallup, conducted in October 2013.
But I am not at all sure that this slight preference is irreversible. In fact, the trend seems to be going in the other direction.
In any case, if the instructive impact of the law "work[s] to keep minority behavior (e.g., heroin or meth use) in the minority," as you have posited, that would be a very good thing, I believe.
Since preferences trended to legalization under the current laws, the current laws seem very unlikely to effect a reversal.
In fact, the trend seems to be going in the other direction.
These polls typically have a statistical margin of error of several percent; a small one-time apparent reversal of a decades-long trend is most likely statistical noise.
Well, those preferences, indeed, "trended to legalization" in two states in 2012--Colorado and Washington state--but not in the other 48...
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