Researchers Urge Doctors to Use Medical Pot for Chronic Pain, Forget the Dangerous Op

[poledriver]

Researchers Urge Doctors to Use Medical Pot for Chronic Pain, Forget the Dangerous Opioid Pills

Two trends are coming together that may bring changes to the way chronic nerve pain is treated.

Overdose deaths from prescription opioid pills are increasing dramatically, such as the epidemic in Tennessee. Meanwhile, multitudes of studies are confirming the medical benefits of cannabis, as prohibition laws steadily crumble.

Well-known researchers at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS have published an editorial in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, saying that doctors are ignoring legitimate studies on the use of cannabis to treat a host of conditions.

Thomas Kerr, Julio Montaner and Stephanie Lake argue that medical cannabis should be used instead of opioids for neuropathic pain, but this is being stigmatized by the fact that medical cannabis is not approved by Canadian regulators.

“The evidence supporting the therapeutic use of cannabis is actually much stronger than the use of other drugs that are used to treat the same conditions and it also seems, in many cases, that cannabis has a more favourable side-effect profile,” said Dr. Kerr. “Opioids are killing people right now. There is no association with cannabis and mortality, and yet North America is in the midst of, really, what is a public-health emergency associated to opioid overdose deaths.”
Canadians are second to the U.S. in per capita consumption of opioids, and these government-sanctioned big pharma products are responsible for nearly half of all overdose deaths in the country. Despite the addictive and deadly effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of OxyContin for children as young as 11, ensuring an early generation of pill-poppers to fuel the profits of pharmaceutical companies.

Kerr cited a recent study that adds to the logic of their argument for medical cannabis over opioids. As we reported in August, U.S. states that have approved medical cannabis showed a 25% drop in opioid overdose deaths.

In Canada, medical marijuana is legal (mostly through mail delivery) and the courts have recognized its therapeutic uses, but narrow-minded politicians are clinging to misinformation and paranoia.

“When it comes to prescription marijuana, patients’ needs should be considered above political considerations. There could be great harm in ignoring the medical uses of marijuana,” said study co-author Dr. Julio Montaner.

Kerr says the Canadian government is “misrepresenting the science,” pointing to an example where Stephen Harper said that cannabis is “infinitely worse” than tobacco.

Other noted doctors are on board with the idea of using medical cannabis, but say that government is getting in the way.

Charles Webb, head of the association representing B.C.’s doctors, agreed that medical marijuana may well help with those conditions described by Dr. Kerr, but he said many physicians will remain reticent to prescribe it until Health Canada comes out with guidelines on dosage, concentration and best practices for administering the drug.
“Let’s study, trial and come up with some answers in terms of how to work through this [cannabis] situation with [administering] inhaled, versus vaporized, versus oils, versus baked products,” said Dr. Webb.”

As more health professionals come out in support of medical cannabis to treat a variety of ailments, including chronic pain, the U.S. and Canada should reconsider their cozy relationship with big pharma that brings addiction and death in the form of prescription opioids.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/re...pioid-pills-chronic-pain/#UzXpyGhy5jOkYlPr.99
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/re...pioid-pills-chronic-pain/#23mmsb9IHDiOUqM2.99

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

North American, in pain and prescribed 'funky' strength opioids?

I'd gladly trade aload of weed for'em!

 

[manboychef]

I still don't understand why cannabis is not an accepted treatment for quite a few medical ailments. I have always had panic attacks from the newer high THC strains of weed...however, I was able to try nearly pure CBD and it was an amazing treatment for anxiety. I felt almost normal! I would much rather have this option instead of the buspirone that doesn't work or the benzos that I feel everytime I take them I get closer to being dependent. Yeah the benzos work well in stopping my anxiety but it also stops my other emotions as well. I become almost cold and distant on xanax and that is no way to be walking around in society.

I think it is just a gross mistreatment of sick people to get them hooked on opiates rather than allow them to smoke pot. Yeah opiates are great for killing pain and giving you a mood lift, but the side effects are pretty gnarly. It is exactly why we need term limits on all positions in government. Each generation is more forward thinking than the last...and people in their seventies and eighties have no business making laws for people that are half their age and below.

 

[manboychef]

As more health professionals come out in support of medical cannabis to treat a variety of ailments, including chronic pain, the U.S. and Canada should reconsider their cozy relationship with big pharma that brings addiction and death in the form of prescription opioids.

This. Big pharma is big money and they have the lobbying (bribing) power to back it up. There are two sides to this coin. We are demonizing, and criminalizing doctors for prescribing opiates that are actually helpful to many people. This makes it difficult for doctors to treat their patients. I hear all the time about doctors under prescribing opiates now because they are afraid of losing their licences or being stigmatized as being "dirty" doctors. This has led to a huge upswing in the availability and use of heroin.

If they truly wanted to help the people that need these medications then we should stop restricting our doctors. Stop pointing to overdose deaths as a result of doctors and more as a result in how our government (state and federal) handles these things. Harrison act needs to be repealed.

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

I hate media oversimplifications of opiod dangers. That being said, this looks promising. Less severe cases of chronic pain could probably be managed with mild-non-narcotic pain meds, as well as cannabis. But in moderate-severe cases, opiates should remain the gold standard.

The #1 side effect of opiates is addiction. Addiction is not in and of itself dangerous. What is dangerous is the way this country treats and handles addiction. Prohibition coupled with ZERO in the way of harm reduction education goes a long way towards explaining why so many die of opiate overdose. Further, lack of realistic, modern treatment therapies go a long way towards explaining why so many lives are utterly destroyed by addiction.

To correct the article, opiods do not bring addiction and death. They do bring addiction. They need not bring death. What leads addicts to death is a plethora of factors, all of which could be ameliorated if we simply nixed prohibition, or at the very least introduced some sort of maintenance therapy, in the line of the Swiss heroin/hydromorphone therapies.

All medications have risks, we should demonize none and instead seek an intelligent, mature understanding/appreciation of their benefits. Hell, fuckin' tylenol kills almost 1,000 people a year. I hate these media articles that shout about the "heroin epidemic" etc, just for the sake of sensationalism. Such khazery kills all intelligent discourse and makes it less and less likely that opiate addicts will ever get the treatments they could desperately use.

Addiction is not the #1 side effect of opioids.

Constipation probably is.

Hardly anyone who uses opioids medically becomes addicted to them, though if used for longer than a month (Daily use) I imagine almost everyone will become physically dependant on them.

I'm guessing this is probably what you meant, ddependence not addiction.

 

[manboychef]

Lets face it. There is a certain group of people predisposed to become not just dependent but addicted on prescribed medications. This is a small number. Why should we chastise those that are only dependent for the ways of the addict? I mean an addict is going to score regardless of if he gets it from a doctor...thems just the ways of the world.

 

['medicine cabinet']

That's a great idea but.....morphine is a d. basically will be the gold standard for pain relief, I mean serious pain.

You're not going to come out of a roken leg surgery and smoke even the best shatter and say wow, no more pain l.


I def think mmj has so.e great pain relief benefits, when I get a migraine a really strong hybred wax almost totally k ocks it out in 5 mins

It's not a panacea but its better than most of the shiity lain pills, tramadol propoxyphene...

 

[Burnt Offerings]

It's definitely good as conjunctive therapy. My father uses cannabis in order not to take as many Percocet.

He's says it's pretty effective for pain and his body is an orthopedic nightmare, esp. his spinal cord.

 

[_DankOpiAmp_]

In combination with opioids weed is excellent for pain. It is better than morphine a treating neuropathic pain and has anti- inflammatory properties but is truly useless for standard pain. It is like the issue is being purposely misrepresented so bastards can go back and claim those who support weed were wrong all along. This is dangerous and needs to stop. Weed doesn't treat obesity either ( like wtf?).