Pot for Pain_ More Patients Are Saying Yes _ the Daily Caller

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Opinion

Pot For Pain? More Patients Are

Saying Yes 10:22 AM 09/05/2014

Are patients in medical cannabis states substituting pot

for potentially lethal painkillers? It appears that way.

According to datapublished in theJournal of the American

Medical Association Internal Medicine, the enactment of

statewide medicinal marijuana laws is associated with

significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality

rates. Investigators conducted a time-series analysis of

medical cannabis laws and state-level death certificate

data in the United States from 1999 to 2010 a periodduring which 13 states instituted laws allowing for cannabis therapy.

Researchers reported, States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 percent lower

mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared with states without medical

cannabis laws. Specifically, they found that overdose deaths from opioids decreased

by an average of 20 percent one year after the laws implementation, 25 percent by two

years, and up to 33 percent by years five and six.

Although the exact mechanism is unclear, our results suggest a link between medical

cannabis laws and lower opioid analgesic overdose mortality, they reported.

Commenting on the study to USA Today, co-author Colleen L. Barry said: [The study's

findings] suggest the potential for many lives to be saved. We can speculate that

people are completely switching or perhaps supplementing, which allows them to

lower the dosage of their prescription opioid.

It is understandable why many chronic pain patients are making the switch. Annual

deaths by opiates have increased over 400 percent since the late 1990s, and now

average over 16,600 per year. In addition, over 100,000 hospitalizations are

attributable annually due to the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g.,

Advil, Aleve) as well as numerous fatalities. (One studytallied over 16,000 deaths per

year due to the use of NSAIDS by patients with rheumatoid arthritis or

osteoarthritis.) Even the use of acetaminophen poses severe risks, contributingto

more than 50,000 hospitalizations yearly and an estimated 500 fatalities (attributable

to acute liver failure). By contrast, cannabinoids are comparatively non-toxic to healthy

cells and organs and are incapableof triggering lethal overdose.

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They are also efficacious in addressing pain, including chronic neuropathy a hard to

treat type of nerve-related analgesia that is typically resistant to conventional

painkillers. (It is estimated that some eight percent of U.S. citizens suffer from

neuropathy, which is associated with a variety of diseases, including diabetes, HIV, and,

multiple sclerosis.) In FDA-approved clinical trials, neuropathy patients have

consistently reportedsignificant pain relief following whole-plant cannabis

administration, even when it is administeredin especially small doses. A recent review

of a number of these trials, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology,

concluded, [I]t is reasonable to consider cannabinoids as a treatment option for the

management of chronic neuropathic pain with evidence of efficacy in other types of

chronic pain such as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis as well.

Separate clinical data, published in 2011 in the journal Clinical Pharmacology &

Therapeutics, further reportsthat cannabis administration possesses a synergistic

analgesic effect when used adjunctively with opiates. [This] combination may allow for

opioid treatment at lower doses with fewer side effects, authors theorized.

Other pain experts have made even stronger recommendations in favor of the use of

cannabis as either an adjunct treatment or a substitute for prescription painkillers. A

review appearing in 2012 in the Harm Reduction Journalacknowledges, Prescribing

cannabis in place of opioids for neuropathic pain may reduce the morbidity and

mortality rates associated with prescription pain medications and may be an effective

harm reduction strategy. It concludes, In states where medicinal cannabis is legal,

physicians who treat neuropathic pain with opioids should evaluate their patients for a

trial of cannabis and prescribe it when appropriate prior to using opioids.

Apparently, a growing number of pain physicians, and their patients, are now heeding

this advice.

Tags: Colleen L. Barry, medical marijuana, Paul Armentano

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11 Comments 1

TheRuleOfLaw

Big Pharma is one of the main lobbyists against legalization. From someone

who was confined to a wheelchair 10 years ago due to a back injury, I havebeen without a wheelchair now for 9 years. I even go snowboarding and

hiking. Thanks to the wonderful plant cannabis...:)

James Linthicum

NJ should not be included in this study. Thanks to the Govenhater, the MM

law is tantamount to fraud.

Nov-cubed

produce it in a pharmaceutical grade pill or the like,


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Pot for Pain_ More Patients Are Saying Yes _ the Daily Caller