Categories | Health & Medicine Article

Opioid Abuse Decreases As Cannabis Legalization Increases

March 30th, 2017 • Health & Medicine • 2 minute read
Article Image
Author Sara E. Teller

Opioid Abuse Decreases As Cannabis Legalization Increases

States that have legalized marijuana have seen decreases in patients being treated for opioid use and overdoses, according to a recent study conducted by Yuyan Shi, a public health professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at University of California in San Diego. The study is one of five more well known studies that have been published linking the legalization of cannabis with lower hospitalization rates with opioid users. The study included “state-level annual administrative records of hospital discharges during 1997–2014” that “were obtained from the State Inpatient Databases (SID),” according to records.  “Linear time-series regressions” were used to analyze this data and determined whether the legalization of marijuana was a significant contributor in the reduction of opioid mishaps.

As states move to legalized cannabis, opioid usage and overdoses decreases.Image Courtesy of Hemophilia Federation of America

So far, medical marijuana is legal under state law in 28 states.  For pain sufferers, using marijuana effectively accomplishes the same purpose as opioids and is safer than indulging in the alternative.  The substance decreases pain just the same as the prescription pills.  Unfortunately, currently, opioids are still largely considered "safe" since they’re prescribed by a doctor and dispensed widely at pharmacies, while cannabis is still associated with illegality.  So, there is a social stigma that needs to be overcome in order for the drug to be more widely accepted as a safer replacement option. As more information regarding the benefits of using marijuana for pain management becomes available, this perception is likely to shift.  “Public perception needs to shift, and research will help,” according to author Josh Kaplan, Ph.D.  He adds, “Physicians are desperate for a more efficacious and safer long-term solution to treat their patients.” Researchers are hopeful that the recent increased push toward legalization will quickly shift the public’s option, and in turn, hopefully reduce opioid addiction and overdoses.

Sources:

Legalized Marijuana Could Help Curb the Opioid Epidemic, Study FindsCAN CANNABIS RESCUE THE OPIOID OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC IN 2017?
Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

Related Articles