Can Medical Marijuana Help Stop the Opiate Epidemic in RI?

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Nicholas Handy, GoLocalProv Contributor

New research suggests that medical marijuana could be an option to help curb and even eliminate problems associated with the heroin epidemic currently plaguing the nation.

This research, published on the JAMA Internal Medicine website, shows that states that have enacted successful medical marijuana programs prior to 2010 have a 24.8-percent lower annual death rate from opioid overdoses than states where medical marijuana was illegal prior to 2010.

“In summary, although we found a lower mean annual rate of opioid analgesic mortality in states with medical cannabis laws, a direct causal link cannot be established,” wrote the authors - lead by Dr. Marcus A. Bachhuber at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center - in the study. “If the relationship between medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality is substantiated in further work, enactment of laws to allow for use of medical cannabis may be advocated as part of a comprehensive package of policies to reduce the population risk of opioid analgesics.”

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

The research that was published is not in anyway saying that heroin overdoses and medical marijuana use are linked, but it does raise a lot of interesting points about the role of opiates as a pain relief treatment option. According to the CDC, the percentage of patients who receive opiates for non-cancer pain has doubled over the past decade, which is why many are looking to alternative options to curb the heroin epidemic, as many heroin users begin their addiction though opiate prescriptions.

A Victory for Public Health

While just one study supporting medical marijuana as a potentially more effective treatment option for chronic pain, many advocates feel that these results bode well for future ease of access to marijuana.

According to Jared Moffat, Director of Regulate Rhode Island, these research results must not be taken out of context, but they overall signal that medical marijuana is a safer alternative to opiates, because there is much less chance of addiction and death.

View Larger +

"While we must be careful to interpret the results of the study carefully, the findings seem to suggest that ending the foolish prohibition of marijuana would be a huge win for public health,” said Moffat. “Compared to drugs like opioids and alcohol, marijuana is much safer — it has never caused a single overdose death. In light of this recent study and the mountain of other public health evidence we have, it really doesn't make any sense to continue punishing adults who choose to use marijuana."

More Research Needed

Because Rhode Island is one of the states that has battling against opiate addictions as of late, David Spencer, the Executive Director of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Association of Rhode Island, would like to see more research go into the effects of medical marijuana in relation to opiate addiction so that there can be definitive results about the advantages.

Spencer does agree that medical marijuana is a much less dangerous substance than opiates and does benefit from not being physically addicting, making medical marijuana a much more safer alternative treatment option to opiates, but also feels that the efforts on curbing opiate addiction needs to lie in treatment and recovery, not in supplementing one drug for another.

“We have been very supportive of the medical marijuana program in Rhode Island,” said Spencer. “I don’t know if this study shows that a link can be made at this point in time; more research should definitely occur. With this being said, our organization is a big advocate of treatment so that people can get their lives back together; we don’t want to advocate for supplementing one drug with another.”

Related Slideshow: Marijuana Use in the New England States

According to data collected by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, New Englanders are among the nation's top marijuana users in the country. See how the indivdual states compare in the slides below: