The American Academy of Pain Medication reports that 1.5 billion people around the world suffer from chronic pain. For many of those people, opioids are their painkillers of choice. Opioid overdose killed more than 16,500 in the United States in 2010. While that number continues to rise, surprising news from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania indicates that prescription painkiller overdoses are actually declining in states with medical marijuana legislation on the books.
Prior to 1999, Oregon, Washington and California were the only three states with active medical cannabis laws. Between 1999 and 2010, ten more states legalized marijuana for medical use.
The study, funded by the Center for AIDS Research and the National Institutes of Health, concluded that the opioid overdose rate declined by 24.8 percent in the states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010.
The biggest problems with taking Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin, or other opiates are the high risk of overdose and becoming physically and mentally dependent on the drug. Now that medical cannabis use has been approved in certain states, residents in those states can opt for marijuana treatment instead of risking addiction and overdose on prescription painkillers.
Dr. Marcus Bachhuber is a VA Scholar at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia and the lead study author for the research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Bachhuber treats patients suffering with chronic pain and reports some patients feel that marijuana worked better to relieve their pain than prescription painkillers did.
The study's findings seem to suggest that more patients in states where they have access to medical cannabis may be choosing that option. With fewer people using opiates to manage pain, there are fewer overdoses. Researchers also pointed out that state funded public education programs focusing on painkiller abuse may also contribute in part to the lower overdose rates reported in those states.
With more states considering the legalization of marijuana, more statistics will become available to help researchers determine if a decrease in opioid overdoses will be a benefit associated with the enactment of medical marijuana laws.
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