Can Legal Marijuana Solve The Opioid Crisis?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions just recently stated he was «astonished» by claims that legal cannabis might solve the opioid crisis devastating the nation. However, a brand-new study firmly connected legalized weed to reduced opioid abuse and overdoses.

After examining hospitalization records from 1997 to 2014 in 27 states, 9 of which legalized medical cannabis within that timeframe, researchers from the University of California San Diego found hospitalization rates of people struggling with painkiller abuse and addiction dropped on average 23 percent in states that used medical cannabis. Opioid overdose cases at medical facilities in states with legal weed likewise came by an average of 13 percent, the study said.

The study, which was released in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence report, said the findings prove that worries of legal cannabis driving hospitalizations upward were unverified.

«Medical cannabis laws might have minimized hospitalizations related to opioid pain relievers,» Yuyan Shi, the research study’s author and University of California San Diego public health professor, informed Reuters Monday. «This research study and a couple of others offered some evidence concerning the potential positive benefits of legislating cannabis to reduce opioid use and abuse, however they are still initial.»

There have actually been other studies that have actually analyzed the connection in between medical cannabis and minimized opioid prescriptions, including one published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine in 2014 that discovered a 25 percent decline in opioid overdose deaths in states with legal medical cannabis.

The findings appear to go hand-in-hand with another more current research study, launched in the July 2016 problem of Health Affairs journal, which found medical professionals in medical cannabis states prescribed 1,800 fewer painkiller prescriptions for patients a year.

More than 33,000 U.S. citizens passed away from an opioid-related overdose in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Cannabis, which the federal government still classifies as a Schedule I substance, has yet to be connected to any deadly overdoses.