There is clear evidence that allowing people the use of medical cannabis cuts down notably on overuse or abuse of heavy-duty pain medications, like oxycodone and oxycontin and curtails the death rate associated with this.
States that have legalized marijuana for managing chronic pain have significantly fewer deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses each year, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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"We found there was about a 25% lower rate of prescription painkiller overdose deaths on average after implementation of a medical marijuana law," lead study author Dr. Marcus Bachhuber said.
In 2010 alone, he said, states with medical marijuana laws had approximately 1,700 fewer overdose deaths than would have been expected based on the numbers before such laws were passed.
Hell, there is data suggesting that medical marijuana laws save lives via decreasing suicides.
Meanwhile, DEA policies are causing pain management doctors to severely restrict prescribing of these meds, because people abuse them and/or sell them, but cutting back on everybody is fueling this nation’s heroin epidemic:
This past October, however, the DEA decided to change a variety of painkillers from Schedule III to Schedule II drugs. This change, though seemingly small, requires, among other things, that patients be seen by a doctor before getting a prescription. Prescriptions for Schedule II medications cannot be called or faxed into a pharmacy, and doctors may only write prescriptions for a 30-day quantity.
The shift in scheduling was prompted by a sharp increase in the use and abuse of painkillers in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, enough painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every adult in America for a straight month. Sales and deaths related to painkillers have increased markedly since 1999.
While these DEA rule changes may sound like a good idea, they result in serious unintended consequences. My father only required one trip to the doctor, but others are less fortunate. Thousands of Americans suffering from chronic pain rely on those drugs to function. The new regulations mean these individuals now face greater difficulties getting their needed medication. In a recent article, the Washington Post reported that the rule is taking a particularly difficult toll on veterans suffering from battlefield injuries like missing limbs and PTSD.
And, so, this policy has classic “unintended consequences”:
Doctors have been less willing to prescribe medications, especially in states like Florida, formerly known for its pill mills, where tighter restrictions on prescribers led to a 23% drop in overdose deaths between 2010 and 2012.
The drugs themselves have been tweaked as well. In August 2010, an abuse deterrent version of Oxycontin was released to great fanfare. It was reformulated so it could not as easily be crushed or solubilized so abusers would have a difficult time injecting or snorting it. Within two years, the choice of oxycontin as a drug of abuse went from 35.6% to 12.8%.
That was the good news. The bad news is that the same study showed heroin use nearly doubled.
Now, this is not ENTIRELY the DEA’s exact fault. Largely, but there is some skulduggery and general nefariousness on part of the company that produces oxycontin in particular.
During the Bush admin, Purdue Pharmaceuticals lied to the DEA and doctors across America about the addictive potential of oxycontin: Lied lied lied lied lied.
More than 400 deaths have been blamed on the drug, adds Orr. Now Purdue Pharma admits it lied to doctors and patients about the risks...to boost sales. "With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable, addictive, and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing public," Brownlee said. "For these misrepresentations and crimes, Purdue and its executives have been brought to justice." Purdue learned from focus groups with physicians in 1995 that they were worried about the abuse potential of OxyContin. The company then gave false information to its sales representatives that the drug had less potential for addiction and abuse than other painkillers, the U.S. attorney said.
And, a blast from the past here—remember how awful the Bush years were? Bush Admin tried to run interference for the drug-maker:
The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.
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Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired.
All of this went on while arresting people for marijuana was Job #1 for law enforcement in this country, and most particularly for the DEA. People are lying, cheating and stealing to get these medications and dropping dead like flies from them, and marijuana doesn’t kill anybody but oh my god, we are to just freak out about it.
So, access to medical marijuana essentially undercuts this opiate-prescription-to-heroin-abuse mechanism:
In practical application, cannabis therapy can be used in conjunction with other chronic pain therapies. In his clinical practice, Dr. Rabe reports, “We have many patients who come in on higher doses of opioid medications. Through using cannabis, in conjunction with other therapies, they are able to lower their daily opioid requirement.”
Numerous studies support these findings, including a 2011 study published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics which showed that vaporizing cannabis increased the patient-reported analgesic effect of opioids, without altering plasma opioid levels. Moreover, there is an emerging body of research whose findings suggest cannabis can be used as an effective substitution therapy for patients with opiate abuse issues.
The idea of lowering the demand for opiates translates into less demand for opiates and fewer people feeling a need to move on to heroin. Is this not a good thing? Okay, let’s sweeten the deal and add that it saves lives. Measurably. Any better?
What’s it going to take to let scientific data determine healthcare policies? What does it take to wrest patient care from the hands of a vicious, hateful entity like the DEA, which runs on lies and bullshit and is fighting for it’s life because it is inherently useless?
Remember, the age-old marijuana scare story is that it’s a gateway drug that will lead you to overdose on heroin.
Now, the TRUTH (as in scientific data) is that LACK of cannabis access IS driving some people into the clutches of heroin addiction and the DEA is making it happen.
The facts ARE that
- Cannabis does not act as a “gateway”—this is a myth perpetuated as a scare tactic that keeps the discourse emotionalized and less-rational.
- Cannabis has all the potential in the world to save lives and curtail heroin addiction, if it is able to be obtained without fear of the police arresting people and ruining their lives by the millions.
- the DEA is creating the heroin epidemic by assaulting the doctor-patient relationship and by continuing to demonize cannabis and fight its relegalization, keeping more people from being able to use it without fear of arrest, ruination or death by police.
The DEA needs to be defunded and disbanded and cannabis needs to be available to The People.