• DPMC Moderators: thegreenhand | tryptakid
  • Drug Policy & Media Coverage Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Drug Busts Megathread Video Megathread

States with Legal Medical Cannabis Have Seen a 25% Decrease in Opiate Overdoses

TheBlackPirate

TheBlackPirate

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 16, 2015
Messages
680
Leafly said:
States with Legal Medical Cannabis Have Seen a 25% Decrease in Prescription Painkiller Overdose Deaths



A study that was published today in JAMA Internal Medicine has found that in the 13 states that legalized the use of medical cannabis between 1999 and 2010, there was a reduction in deaths by overdosing on prescription painkillers by an astounding 25%. According to Newsweek, prescription pain medicine overdose deaths have increased threefold since 1991. In the United States alone, 46 people die from a prescription painkiller overdose every day.

The study's co-author, Colleen Barry, said the decline was noticeable as quickly as one year after each state debuted its medical marijuana program. For those of us who are familiar with medical marijuana's benefits, the decrease isn't terribly surprising -- when patients have legal access to medical cannabis and find relief in its abilities to help manage pain, they're less likely to rely on prescription opiates and can either forgo them entirely or use a much lower dosage than they previously felt was necessary.

However, the study has attracted a number of critics who point out that medical cannabis isn't commonly prescribed for chronic pain, and that the results may be due to states cracking down on doctors over-prescribing opiate medications to patients. Furthermore, states that are more likely to legalize medical cannabis may also have more progressive laws to treat addiction and can thus lower overdose death rates through a multitude of routes.

One thing we can all agree upon is that medical cannabis hasn't led to an increase in prescription painkiller overdose deaths, so whether or not it actually contributed to a 25% decrease in legal medical marijuana states, it hasn't hurt, either.
Click to expand...
https://www.leafly.com/news/health/states-with-legal-medical-cannabis-have-seen-a-25-decrease-in-pre
 
JAMA (Internal Medicine) said:
JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Oct;174(10):1668-73. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.4005.

Medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality in the United States, 1999-2010.
Bachhuber MA1, Saloner B2, Cunningham CO3, Barry CL4.


Author information

1Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania2Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia3Leonard Davis Institute of Health.
2Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia4Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
3Division of General Internal Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York.
4Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia6Department of Health Policy and Management, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.

Erratum in
JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Nov;174(11):1875.




Abstract

IMPORTANCE:
Opioid analgesic overdose mortality continues to rise in the United States, driven by increases in prescribing for chronic pain. Because chronic pain is a major indication for medical cannabis, laws that establish access to medical cannabis may change overdose mortality related to opioid analgesics in states that have enacted them.



OBJECTIVE:
To determine the association between the presence of state medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality.



DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:
A time-series analysis was conducted of medical cannabis laws and state-level death certificate data in the United States from 1999 to 2010; all 50 states were included.
EXPOSURES:

Presence of a law establishing a medical cannabis program in the state.



MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:
Age-adjusted opioid analgesic overdose death rate per 100 000 population in each state. Regression models were developed including state and year fixed effects, the presence of 3 different policies regarding opioid analgesics, and the state-specific unemployment rate.



RESULTS:
Three states (California, Oregon, and Washington) had medical cannabis laws effective prior to 1999. Ten states (Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont) enacted medical cannabis laws between 1999 and 2010. States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate (95% CI, -37.5% to -9.5%; P = .003) compared with states without medical cannabis laws. Examination of the association between medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality in each year after implementation of the law showed that such laws were associated with a lower rate of overdose mortality that generally strengthened over time: year 1 (-19.9%; 95% CI, -30.6% to -7.7%; P = .002), year 2 (-25.2%; 95% CI, -40.6% to -5.9%; P = .01), year 3 (-23.6%; 95% CI, -41.1% to -1.0%; P = .04), year 4 (-20.2%; 95% CI, -33.6% to -4.0%; P = .02), year 5 (-33.7%; 95% CI, -50.9% to -10.4%; P = .008), and year 6 (-33.3%; 95% CI, -44.7% to -19.6%; P < .001). In secondary analyses, the findings remained similar.



CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:
Medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates. Further investigation is required to determine how medical cannabis laws may interact with policies aimed at preventing opioid analgesic overdose.
Click to expand...

Free Full Text
 
This is nothing new. Honestly for being a wonder medicine this plant gets a bad rap. My dad smokes daily. He has had his hips replaced twice and rather than take his meds he would rather smoke because he says it eases his mind, and relaxes his muscles.
 
^Cannabis is valuable medicine. I smoke cannabis every evening and this improves my sleep. I much prefer cannabis over binzodiazapines at night.
 
Its funny because the only time i couldnt smoke weed was when i had a budding heroin addiction. I would get thrown into this introspective hell where I would regret huge portions of my life that lead to opiates. I am not saying that marijuana makes pain patients reconsider their addictions as most have a problem admitting that, required or not, they have one however, it does speak to cannabis's potential.

My uncle is also one of these people. He has sever back problems to the point where he was on a crippling amount of opiates. He was suicidal and part of christmas dinner was always dedicated to being like "but ray, your son will still need you when hes 18. You shouldnt think that you wont has issues in 4 years thats setting yourself up for failure" For so long he would be this depressing person we had to spend forever convincing that he has a reason to live. Ever since marijuana was legalized for medical use in my state he is a changed person. I went to his house with my former g/f to buy and smoke weed... god it was like a new person. I kept saying to her "wow hes really changed you dont get it, if this was last year we would have spent hours consoling the man until we decided we couldnt do it any longer and had to leave" It was amazing all he wanted to do was talk about weed, the future, and old westerns. He is 63 and just rediscovered (old hippy) a love for weed he left in the 70s and it saved his life. He no longer takes opiates.

I was always for legalization as marijuana has been a large part of my life and something that i will always enjoy but seeing it save my uncle after a decade of my family not being able to, i dont understand how people can say its bad. My uncle was always trying to get us to sign papers saying my family would adopt his son and my father always refused, he was looking for a way out for so long and marijuana saved him.
 
szuko000 said:
Its funny because the only time i couldnt smoke weed was when i had a budding heroin addiction. I would get thrown into this introspective hell where I would regret huge portions of my life that lead to opiates. I am not saying that marijuana makes pain patients reconsider their addictions as most have a problem admitting that, required or not, they have one however, it does speak to cannabis's potential.
Click to expand...

I don't post much these days, but I have to re-echo this sentiment. Marijuana, particularly a strong experience, always made me very introspective about my life, ways I was fucking it up, things I could do better, analyzing my relationship with harder drugs, etc. I personally feel that marijuana has made an overall positive impact in my life. There are times that I have abused it, but it also has been very important in helping me become more aware of my body and mind.

I think that marijuana can be very effective in re-evaluating our relationships with drugs, including marijuana itself. Admittedly tolerance diminishes these effects for me, but I would still consider it one of the most valuable experiences in my life.
 
Didn't read the article but when I was on whatever I could take basically half as much and be satisfied with a few tokes added... When I would take my regular dose then take a few tokes I'd be nodding my ass off. So, not new and makes sense it would help overdoses as people ( or me) would pop or shoot up less of whatever I was taking.
 
46 people die of prescription opiate overdoses per day? That seems high. Anyone seen the full study to know if this number includes drug combos or methadone?

Edit -- If it's referencing the study in post #2 then it looks like it's not taking about prescription opiates at all.
 
Ya, most overdoses involve another downer mixed in such as benzos, soma, alcohol or what seems to be happening a lot now is that dope has fent mixed in with it, which is just asking for an OD.. I don't know why this is going on so much now seems like dope dealers would get the message it's just killing more people instead of just making there stuff better and getting rid of their customers instead of making them come back. There have even been reports of fake norcos, roxis, and Xanax bars that are nothing but fent and killing people. Though it is an opiate it's a very strong one, I've used it to break through suboxone a few times and end up being told I'm talking like I'm drunk(not slurring, but that slow talking thing u get when really fucked up on opiates).
 
cashfl0w_d0nkey said:
46 people die of prescription opiate overdoses per day? That seems high. Anyone seen the full study to know if this number includes drug combos or methadone?

Edit -- If it's referencing the study in post #2 then it looks like it's not taking about prescription opiates at all.
Click to expand...


Actually, those are probably the quantity of prescription opioid overdoses. The vast majority of drug overdoses result from legal prescription drugs and alcohol. Illegal drug overdoses are rarer.


United States of America CDC said:
db190_fig1.png
Click to expand...
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db190.htm
 
TheBlackPirate said:
Actually, those are probably the quantity of prescription opioid overdoses. The vast majority of drug overdoses result from legal prescription drugs and alcohol. Illegal drug overdoses are rarer.



http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db190.htm
Click to expand...

The study referenced in the article is just wildly inaccurate. It references a study where heroin and other non prescription painkiller overdoses are lumped together, and then tries to make an argument about prescription opioids.

The chart you posted is misleading in a few ways. They are using coroner death codes to make the comparison. This means that it doesn't differentiate between polydrug overdoses, doesn't exclude drugs like methadone which are not prescription painkillers, and has a difficult time differentiating between prescription drugs and heroin, as heroin metabolizes into morphine, and fentanyl is also often sold as heroin. The most relevant statistic here would be one that gives the number of overdoses per prescription drug and where drug combinations are ruled out. Logically, this number is going to be much smaller than the number of heroin deaths as there is no question of dose inaccuracy or impurities such as fentanyl.
 
From the CDC study that this is referencing:

"Using this method, in 2014 there were almost 19,000 deaths involving prescription opioids, equivalent to about 52 deaths per day. This is an increase from approximately 16,000 in 2013.1 A significant portion of the increase in deaths was due to deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, which includes fentanyl. Law enforcement agencies have reported recent increases in seizures of illegally-made (non-pharmaceutical) fentanyl.2 It is presumed that a large proportion of the increase in deaths is due to illegally-made fentanyl.1 Unfortunately, information reported about overdose deaths does not distinguish pharmaceutical fentanyl from illegally-made fentanyl."

http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/analysis.html

updated-od-deaths-fullsize-tw-v2.png


This still doesn't clear up exactly how drug combination overdoses involving prescription opiates are categorized. For example, how would an overdose of a benzodiazepine in conjunction with an opiate be reported? How would an overdose of heroin and fentanyl be classified? It also doesn't account for heroin overdoses reported as morphine overdoses.
 
To the guy with the suicidal uncle with chronic back pain.

I can relate to your uncle a lot because I have and continue to go through the same thing. opioids and alcohol really exaccerbate the mental tendency to do suicidal ideation. As soon as you drop the dose or the drug wears off you want to kill yourself.

Then again, the pain releif that ONLY opioids can bring do keep people in severe pain from killing themselves. during my worst pain I drank a fifth a day and ate percocet like candy and was ready to just kill myself. When I found a doctor willing to put someone my age on fentanyl it saved my life at the time, I was ready to kill myself to escape the pain.

Weed always made by back pain worse. It always reduced the analgesia of the opioids....but it did work wonders for the depression that chronic pain brings.

for really bad spinal pain weed really doesn't do shit, makes it worse if anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top