With more and more states pushing forward to legalize marijuana both recreationally and medically, a lot of doctors are catching onto this, replacing the prescription that they prescribe to people with marijuana suggestions. Recently, the JAMA Internal Medicine magazine offered two papers that actually highlighted just what marijuana and the legalization of this has done for opioid prescriptions.
As what many of us know, opioids are actually highly addictive, and the results that are discovered were quite interesting. They analyzed more than half a decade of the Part D Medicare, and some of the Medicaid prescriptions. They discovered that after the rise of states which legalized marijuana, the number of these prescriptions, and the dose of the opioids were starting to go down a lot.
This could play a major role on how cannabis may help with the opioid crisis too. To further examine this, they decided to look at how cannabis was implemented to the state laws, while also looking at medications that were filed under part D Medicare for the opioids, and this was done based on the state MCLs that went from 2010 all the way through 2015.
Through this, it was discovered that the usage of opioids actually fell by 2.21 million, and that wsa lesser doses that were filled. This is definitely a result of the ongoing legalization of marijuana in many of the cannabis laws states.
W. David Bradford, who works at eh University of Georgia as an economist, actually wrote on this. He says that if people are interested in alternatives for pain management, marijuana can offer this, without the same risks that traditional opiates do. This of course, also pointed to the study which also further pointed to the benefits of this.
This is because the people who filed for opiates for Medicare actually filed around 14% few er types of prescriptions related to opioids, and this was after the medical cannabis laws got past. They also analyzed the recreational and medical cannabis consumption laws. It actually reduced many of the opiates by about 6% in these cases. There were fewer prescriptions that were filed in the state once marijuana was considered accessible, and the states that had both recreational and medical cannabis saw huge drops too.
With ore and more people looking to see if there is anything we can do to help with the opioid epidemic, it’s definitely something that can possibly be the solution. However, a big thing of note that people tend to forget, is that cannabis, despite all of the good things that it does, do carry side effects that can involve how you feel when intoxicated. If you have too much, it can lead to bad side effects including anxiety, paranoia, and the like.
However, with more and more willing to accept the legalization of this, it’s a hot topic in the world, and right now, since it isn’t federally legal, it’s something that people do want. Many states are looking to use this for different reasons, with more states offering the usage of medical cannabis for the use of medical reasons.
But while there is growing acceptance for marijuana, unfortunately, we’re also dealing with the effects of the federal government. This is because there is still a growing crackdown on stopping the usage of marijuana. However, the studies are starting to encourage people to start looking at the difference this has for a lot of healthcare people out there. The opioid epidemic is still a major problem, and hopefully, with the usage of marijuana, it can fix things.
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