Marijuana for medical purposes has been legalized in an increasing number of states, and many more states are considering passing legislation to legalize the drug. Marijuana for medical purposes is frequently prescribed for pain management; however, it can also be utilized to assist in the treatment of a wide range of other conditions, including anxiety, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain in the bones or joints.
When a state passes a law allowing medical cannabis, there is a 0.5 to 1.5 percentage point decrease in the amount of regular to frequent (up to or greater than once per week on average) nonmedical prescription opioid use, according to a new study that was published in the journal Addiction.
The term “nonmedical prescription opioid use” refers to the practice of utilizing opioid medications.
For this study, data were collected from a nationally representative sample of adults who had reported using prescription opioids for things other than medical purposes in the preceding year.
The term “nonmedical prescription opioid use” refers to the practice of utilizing opioid medications in a manner that is not prescribed by a physician or without a valid prescription from a physician. A study conducted at Rutgers University discovered that daily cannabis use was associated with a lower frequency of nonmedical prescription opioid use. However, the study did not find any correlation between cannabis use and a reduction in the total number of days each week that opioids were used.
The researchers hypothesize that these findings could be because people who experience severe pain tend to have the highest rates of opioid use and are the least likely to benefit from reducing their use of prescription medications, including opioids.
New-onset nonmedical use of prescription opioids or opioid use disorder.
Additionally, the researchers discovered that the use of cannabis was associated with a decreased likelihood of new-onset nonmedical use of prescription opioids or opioid use disorder three years later. This was the case even after the researchers adjusted for various demographic and clinical covariates. Those individuals who experienced moderate or higher pain levels were influential in their agreement with this finding.
However, despite the findings, the authors acknowledge that their study has several shortcomings. About the first point, the data from the NESARC do not provide a clear distinction between the use of marijuana for recreational purposes and medical purposes. The majority of people who use marijuana for medical purposes are young men who combine it with other recreational drugs.
Medical marijuana is not a suitable replacement for opioids.
The second limitation of the study is that the authors were unable to differentiate between the effects of recreational marijuana and medical marijuana on outcomes. This is because a physician is required to certify that a patient has a condition that is appropriate for the prescription of marijuana.
Even though the results of this study are encouraging, it is essential to keep in mind that other studies have demonstrated that medical marijuana is not a suitable replacement for opioids. It is of the utmost importance that we continue to take into consideration the benefits and drawbacks of various treatment approaches for opioid addiction.
We should invest in other strategies to address risky opioid use.
Hillary Samples, an assistant professor of health systems and policy at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and lead author of the study, says that “although these findings indicate that medical marijuana laws are associated with a decrease in nonmedical opioid use, we should invest in other strategies to address risky opioid use.”
Providing access to scientific literature is the responsibility of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which is a component of the National Institutes of Health. Suppose a publication is included in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) databases. This does not mean that the NLM or the National Institutes of Health endorse or agree with the publication’s contents.
