Posted on 08/27/2014 7:45:57 AM PDT by mgist
Author Insights: Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Reduce Opioid Deaths
BY BRIDGET M. KUEHN on AUGUST 26, 2014
Marcus A. Bachhuber, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues found that states that legalize marijuana experience lower rates of opioid deaths, on average, compared with states that don’t allow medical marijuana. Image: University of Pennsylvania Opioid-overdose deaths increased in states across the country between 1999 and 2010, but states that legalized medical marijuana saw less-steep increases than those without, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week.
Growing use of prescription opioids over the past 2 decades to treat chronic pain has helped drive increasing rates of opioid overdoses. To help reduce the problem, state and federal governments have instituted prescription monitoring programs and drug safety plans and tightened restrictions on prescribing popular opioids. Some of these efforts have yielded reductions in opioid overdoses on a state level, but national rates continue to rise.
At the same time, a growing number of states have legalized medical marijuana. In states like Colorado, where medical marijuana has been legal since 2000, the primary reason for a physician to recommend medical marijuana is pain. Some of the other indications for prescribing medical marijuana include nausea from cancer chemotherapy and poor appetite and accompanying weight loss resulting from a chronic illness such as HIV infection.
Marcus A. Bachhuber, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and his colleagues analyzed opioid overdose rates in states with or without legalized medical marijuana to see whether its availability to treat pain helps reduce opioid deaths. They found that while opioid overdose deaths have continued to increase in all states, states that permit prescribing medical marijuana had lower rates of opioid overdose deaths compared with those that do not.
Bachhuber discussed his results with news@JAMA.
news@JAMA: Why did you decide to do the study?
Dr Bachhuber: I’m a primary care physician and I’ve talked to many patients with chronic pain. In the past, I’ve had patients who said they’ve tried prescription opioid painkillers but the only thing that worked to reduce their pain was marijuana. So, my colleagues and I wondered whether people might be choosing to treat their pain with marijuana in states where this is legal, and if these states might see lower rates of painkiller overdoses or deaths.
news@JAMA: You found that the rates of opioid overdose were lower in states allowing medical marijuana. Can you explain what that means?
Dr Bachhuber: We found that rates of opioid overdose deaths have increased in all states. But in the years after the legalization of medical marijuana, states that did so had a rate that was 25% lower than what we’d expect to see in that state, given past trends and what was going on in the rest of the country.
news@JAMA: Why might making medical cannabis available reduce opioid overdose rates?
Dr Bachhuber: Going into the study, we hypothesized that patients with chronic pain might replace opioids with medical marijuana or supplement opioid medications with medical marijuana, allowing them to reduce their opioid dose. Alternatively, there is still a debate about whether medical marijuana might lead patients to use other drugs, so rates of opioid overdose might have increased. We thought there could be a change in either direction, and that’s why we decided to study it.
news@JAMA: Your study can’t prove that medical marijuana was the factor that reduced opioid overdoses. Might there be other explanations?
Dr Bachhuber: One of the limitations of our study is that we can’t identify, measure, and control for every factor that was different between the states and might be contributing to our results. If broader changes were happening in states that also implemented medical marijuana laws, such as changes in patterns of pain treatment or illicit drug use, those could be influencing our results and have nothing to do with medical marijuana. But, if medical marijuana laws are in fact reducing opioid overdose deaths, we would need studies following individuals over time to see how exactly these laws are shifting behavior.
news@JAMA: How much do we know about the use of opioids or marijuana for pain treatment?
Dr Bachhuber: Opioids are approved by the FDA for the treatment of pain; they have undergone randomized trials, but there is very little evidence for long-term use for more than a few months. Marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug, meaning the FDA says there is no valid medical use. Because of this, there is not much research out there to help us understand the risks and benefits of medical marijuana, including what conditions could be successfully treated, which patients might benefit the most, and what the risks may be. Also, head-to-head studies of marijuana and opioids would be incredibly useful for clinical practice.
news@JAMA: What is the main take-home message from your study?
Dr Bachhuber: Our study provides evidence of a possible unexpected public health benefit of medical marijuana legalization. Medical marijuana may have other possible impacts on public health, and as more states enact these laws, it will be worth continuing to look at this issue.
What they won't tell you is this: Dr. Bachhuber is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) "Scholar". The doctor noted a conflict of interest regarding funding for his research, on the original JAMA article. The RWJF has been accused of publishing for propaganda purposes in the past:
"In 1999, RWJF awarded a two-month contract worth $51,844 to Home Front Communications, for the "production and distribution of television messages to encourage enrollment in CHIP," the Children's Health Insurance Program. [5] Home Front is a broadcast public relations firm infamous for having produced two video news releases for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services promoting the benefits of the controversial Medicare drug law. [1] The Government Accountability Office later ruled that the VNRs had "violated the restriction on using appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes." [2] Other Home Front Communications work for RWJF, done in conjunction with the PR firm Burness Communications from 2003 through mid-September 2007, includes producing and distributing "86 broadcast material packets to television stations and/or radio stations highlighting health and health care issues important to RWJF and featuring RWJF grantees and their work," reaching "more than 684-million viewers." RWJF noted, "Much of the content was utilized by stations in the top 20 or 50 markets."
This, boys and girls, is a small example of how the powerful drug money laundering Bankster cartels are manipulating the peasants into believing that narcotics are good for your health, while opiate deaths have actually surpassed alcohol and car crashes in accidental deaths in the US. Make no mistake that the 1% is funding the drug legalization campaign, that deceptively pretends to be citizen activism. They have blood on their hands, and God will take care of them. everyone else take care of your families. Nothing is what is seems.
Not to mention cutting into Big Pharma profits. That’s the real issue.
If that were the case then there would be a decline in heroin use in Washington State which has legalized marijuana. Heroin is booming in the PAC NW. The vast majority of it originates in Mexico. Despite what many people think, the booming Afghan opiate product goes other places than the US.
Well, if it’s a choice between empowering the government via an endless, freedom-killing drug war, and empowering “banksters” (whoever they are), I’m definitely not siding with the government.
Or - it may not....
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There is a possibility this "scholar" may not know anything, or, alternatively, he is absolutely certain he knows nothing, possibly because of heavy cannabinoid use.
You are making a false comparison. The article deals with the reduction of death from prescribed opioids when legal marijuana can be prescribed for pain relief. It makes no claims regarding deaths from the use of illegal drugs such as heroin.
No it just means they did not decide the conclusion of their study before it was conducted.
Who do you think bought and paid for this Manchildchurian candidate?
WALLSTREET!
That would be the "conclusion" they never reached.
Author Insights: Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Reduce Opioid Deaths
I don’t see how they could reach a firm conclusion since marijuana has been legal for such a short time. I can’t access the study but I would hope they would address efforts those states have made to reduce opioid deaths such as trying to reduce pill mills.
I do stand corrected. One part of the abstract mentions just deaths from prescribed opioids the other mentions deaths from both legal and illegal use. I would not expect see a reduction in deaths from illegal drugs cause I sincerely doubt most are under the care of a physician or using heroin to treat chronic pain. Most likely medical marijuana would not be considered a viable alternative to them.
Oh I saw that they really did not reach a conclusion. I’m kind of surprised they even bothered with publishing it. Why not wait till medical marijuana has been legal long enough to have a large enough population to do a better study?
What does illegal heroin have to do with the pharmaceutical industry? Furthermore, heroin use has been on the rise for at least a decade, even while marijuana was illegal.
They do this constantly. When these "scientific" or "medical studies" are published, people believe them, even professionals. That is how they accomplished the Global Warming Scam. Innocent people fall for this crap.
If you don't think they are after you kids, think again.
George Soros’ Shocking ‘Methadone Man’ Comic Book Touts Virtues of Drug http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/08/26/george-soros-shocking-methadone-man-comic-book-touts-virtues-of-drug/#
I don't know either -- the whole confused article seems like a bit part from a Cheech & Chong movie. The indecisiveness of the language suggests the authors are the ones abusing drugs.
I think they will eventually find (if they can remember what they started the study for) that the kind of people addicted to opioids are the same people that took up recreational cannabis use. They just transition from one to the other, most often from cannabis to opioids.
haha, your right, it is a stupid report. The problem is that it will be used and reported as factual “news”.
In my opinion the Opium Wars are alive and well, except this time the Chinese are us.
History certainly does repeat itself.
The Story of Opium
http://opioids.com/narcotic-drugs/chapter-2.html
“But in 1834, the old Emperor Tao-kwang, himself a reclaimed opium-smoker, determined if possible to save his country. He first of all took the sense of the people through his high officials, Shall we legalize and tax the trade, or shall we annihilate it?”
http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/china/moule_opium1881.html
I’ve got news for ya buddy, “Wall Street” is “Main Street”. I own shares in many companies, both directly and through retirement plans, and I’m not rich, nor am I alone.
These tired old phrases may get traction on progressive websites, but not with me.
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