Prescription painkiller deaths fall in medical marijuana states

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/25/us-medical-marijuana-deaths-idUSKBN0GP1UJ20140825

by anigbrowl • 11 years ago

192 113 11 years ago

GordonS14• 11 years ago

A lot of people on prescription opioids don't want to be on them, but they may be the only legal thing that helps with the pain. And then addiction and physical dependence become an issue.

Neuropathy is a case in point. Many people don't respond to SSRIs or SNRIs, or the side effects simply can't be tolerated. The next step is opioids.

I for one would much rather use a plant, rather than opioids that cause addiction, physical dependence, and potentially a life-ruining downward spiral of misery.

lagadu• 11 years ago

I agree for this particular scenario but saying you'd rather use a plant than an opioid when some plants (like opium!) produce the same effects is disingenuous.

Something being a plant doesn't make it automatically better or worse than something artificial, otherwise we'd all be taking some nice nightshade tea instead of aspirin.

oafitupa2• 11 years ago

But removing the need for big pharmacological laboratories definitely makes it better. No more ridiculous prices, no more hidden corporate interests, etc. Just you and your plant, like nature "wanted" it to be.

GordonS14• 11 years ago

sigh, I knew someone would nitpick :)

Perhaps I should have been clearer; My point about it being simply 'a plant' is more that it can be grown at home by users - no need for heavy refinement, solvents, chemical processes or pharmaceutical companies.

Alex3917• 11 years ago

"when some plants (like opium!) produce the same effects is disingenuous."

I'm pretty sure poppy plants didn't evolve to produce massive amounts of Tylenol in order purposely poison people using the plant outside the religious beliefs of the ruling class.

Spooky232• 11 years ago

I think you're reading into it a little too deeply. The point isn't to chew on a random leaf or avoid medicine.

We're in a situation where many people with chronic pain are handed marginally effective, dangerous and highly addictive painkillers, when they could literally grow a more effective and less dangerous pain control medicine in their backyard.

I had a severe back problem that led to a spinal fusion at age 25. I don't react well to most of the painkillers, so my only relief from excruciating pain (to the point where rolling over at night would wake me up) was motrin & hot towels. No idea if marijana would have helped me, but if it can help others basic humanity should compel us to legalize it.

madaxe_again• 11 years ago

Uh, although Aspirin is derived from salicylic acid, from the bark of willow trees, so...

task_queue• 11 years ago

Morphine, from which heroin is derived, codeine and thebaine come directly from a plant. Many prescription pain killers like hydrocodone are derivatives of the latter compound.

inDigiNeous• 11 years ago

But it's not the same thing. Like cocaine compared to coca leaves, the effect and chemical structure is completely different (haven't tried cocaine though, but chewed the leafs, very nice and calm effect, compared to maybe coffee/green tea with some added feeling of refreshment and oxygen in the blood, but without the overdrive factor).

Chewing coca leafs is healthy and I guess close to impossible to overdose, but if you take a condensed and highly extracted version of that, cocaine, you can very easily overdose.

I heard rumors that in russian prisons people make this condensed coffee drink that acts as a sort of meta-amphetamine replacement. They basically make coffee out of coffee until it's this sticky black thing that gets you really driven, I don't remember what they call it, but I remember many people die from this substance also.

Same thing with natural plant vs chemical extracts. Much easier to overdose and get lethal dosage.

omginternets• 11 years ago

And then addiction and physical dependence become an issue.

There are issues that come into play way before physical dependence. For instance, some people are quite intolerant to opioids and exhibit severe nausea, chills and vomiting.

I broke my leg in a fight a few years back and found it much more tolerable to sit (and sleep) very still than to take codeine. I would have loved to have some sort of cannabinoid derivative available, and failing that, I might have considered smoking some cannabis.

vidarh2• 11 years ago

I have migraines now and again where codeine is the only over the counter painkiller with much effect, but even at the small doses that are available, the after-effects are so awful to me that I hate taking it even without any actual tolerance problems. Codeine is a nasty drug.

ucaetano3• 11 years ago

"I for one would much rather use a plant, rather than opioids that cause addiction, physical dependence, and potentially a life-ruining downward spiral of misery."

Replace that with:

"I for one would much rather use a substance with no long-term side effects and generally considered safe, rather than opioids that..."

GordonS14• 11 years ago

That was the main point yes, but there is also the 'grow your own' benefit, so you know exactly what you are putting in your body and how it was produced.

MichaelGG8• 11 years ago

What are the long term effects of opiods, apart from constipation? A potential dip in sex drive? What's the part that's not safe? Other than respiratory depression which is fairly easily avoided with properly labelled medicine.

vidarh2• 11 years ago

Prescription painkillers like oxycodone are large recruitment paths to heroin as well as a cheaper alternative once people get addicted and cut off and forced to deal with drug dealers.

So people who are concerned about heroin abuse, should really want to find alternatives to handing out prescription opioids unnecessarily.

DanBC6• 11 years ago

Opiates are currently the most commonly used medication in death by suicide in the UK. (Followed by tri-cyclin antidepressants, anti psychotics, combination opiates plus paracetamol, and then paracetamol alone).

They're also often the cause of accidental overdose.

If you do take opiate meds please keep them in a safe place; don't stock pile them; consider smaller more frequent prescriptions if you or someone you live with are vulnerable.

MichaelGG8• 11 years ago

... That's so backwards. How about we should find ways to make proper opiates easily accessible, so patients don't need to buy crap "heroin" off the street?

yodsanklai2• 11 years ago

I for one would much rather use a plant, rather than opioids that cause addiction, physical dependence, and potentially a life-ruining downward spiral of misery.

Cannabis has HUGE side effects! After consuming cannabis, I feel good but I'm also totally worthless and incapable of doing anything constructive. That'a serious side effect and unless I have no other option, that's a state I'd like to avoid except for recreational purpose.

GordonS14• 11 years ago

Much of the cannabis available today has very high THC and low CBD concentrations - arguably, at least partly, as a result of prohibition.

If you can, try to find a strain that has close to a 1:1 THC:CBD ratio. The effects are quite different, and you will experience much less of a 'head high'.

xzel• 11 years ago

I would recommend trying a different strain and/or different dosage. I do work while on MJ totally fine, and in fact, I notice some more abstract programming I think about differently (only word I could think of that didn't have a positive/negative bias). Edibles could also provide another type of feeling for you, but again, I would start with a smaller dose than recommended by most. Obviously this is all anecdotal. Best of luck if you try it again!

Also, comparing "addiction, physical dependence, and potentially a life-ruining downward spiral of misery" and your feeling over "worthless and incapable of doing anything constructive" seem so bizarrely juxtaposed that I'm not even sure you weren't being sarcastic.

pheroden2• 11 years ago

Marijuana is great, I'm a fan for both recreation and medicinal. However, it is certainly addictive and If used regularly, you will become dependent on it. Depending on how much you need for pain relief, withdrawal can suck pretty bad. I prefer it to opiates because i can control it better, and it doesn't affect my ability to program nearly as much. Especially since I can stop using marijuana to get through a hard problem, where opiate pain management plans require a constant level. Dropping below that level requires more breakthroughs to get above the pain. This increases your tolerance, and if you do it enough, you end up having to have surgery without any pain management because your at the top level of prescribeable opiates for your baseline, and would require ICU care for fear of your respiratory system shutdown. Marijuana has no such issues, but it still isn't magic.

shimshim• 11 years ago

I have used marijuana for most of my life and I've stopped for periods of time, sometimes up to a year of no use, and I can vouch for the effects of addiction. For me the cold is colder, I sweat more (especially when I sleep) and I tend to be more grouchy. All of this for at least 2 weeks before everything is "normal" again. Even with these withdrawal symptoms I would still prefer marijuana to any opiates.

14573892• 11 years ago

Opium comes from plants. Marijuana often has physical withdrawal symptoms for chronic users. I'm sure there are many people whose lives/potentials are limited by marijuana abuse.

Legalization/regulation is a good step, but let's not kid ourselves.

GordonS14• 11 years ago

Do you have any references about physical withdrawal from cannabis? (serious question, I've never come across any formal evidence of this)

e402• 11 years ago

You need to provide references for the "Marijuana often has physical withdrawal symptoms for chronic users" statement, because I pay attention to this type of stuff and I've never heard or or run across it in real life. Of course, opium addiction and withdrawal are well documented.

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

Your surety of social phenomena absent any presentation of evidence demonstrates only that you give credence to your biases.

thescriptkiddie• 11 years ago

Cannabis does not have medically significant withdrawal symptoms. Some people get headaches (similar to caffeine). Remember, alcohol withdrawal is life-threatening.

placeybordeaux• 11 years ago

I completely agree, but framing it as a plant vs some terrible terrible thing is a bit of a falacy.

After all nightshade and tobacco are both just plants, but are really pretty awful for you.

RIMR• 11 years ago

I for one would much rather use a plant, rather than opioids that cause addiction, physical dependence, and potentially a life-ruining downward spiral of misery.

To be fair, opium is a plant, and there is growing evidence that some synthetic cannabinoids may have medical benefits.

Don't assume that because something is a plant that is is a better medical alternative. Some people find no pain relief from MMJ, so it's still a crapshoot.

Of course, MMJ is literally saving lives in this scenario, so no complaints! Opiates are overprescribed, so alternatives are always welcome!

the_watcher2• 11 years ago

Opium is derived from a plant, but most opiods (particularly those prescribed as medicine) are not, in any way, still plants. Agreed that the idea that just because something is a plant doesn't make it inherently better than a pharmaceutical though.

rwmj• 11 years ago

This bizarre argument always seems to turn up: "There may be a risk that legal medical marijuana will make the drug more accessible for kids and smoking may impair driving or carry other risks, she said."

Completely ignoring the fact that millions of kids are using marijuana illegally right now, and that driving under the influence of drugs is illegal and wrong now, and will still be illegal and wrong when marijuana becomes legal.

Synaesthesia• 11 years ago

And people are driving on opiods too, which may be worse. They were dying from them too! But always have to remember to demonize the drug, in line with official doctrine.

pheroden2• 11 years ago

At one point, I required an obscene amount of opiates to function. If the pain was too steep, you would pop a breakthrough right away. The number of times I found myself sitting at my desk and wondering how I got there were too high.

intopieces2• 11 years ago

I don't see what is bizarre about the argument at all. It doesn't discount that it's illegal and wrong now, it only speculates that the increase in availability will increase the incidence of these actions. Could you expand on how this is not so?

yodsanklai2• 11 years ago

it only speculates that the increase in availability will increase the incidence of these actions.

1 - not sure there will be an increase in availability. I don't know if it's always the case, but where I live, any kid can find weed easily. Ironically, it may be more difficult for adults!

2 - My understanding is that kids in the netherlands (where cannabis can be legally bought) don't consume more cannabis that those from neighbor countries.

filoeleven• 11 years ago

Legalization with regulation tends to make it harder to obtain the product illegally. It's easier for kids in most of the US to get cannabis than it is for them to get alcohol, for example, because the legal, regulated market for alcohol makes selling it illegally largely unprofitable and therefore a much less attractive practice to engage in. This despite the far greater general availability of alcohol.

x5n1• 11 years ago

It's stupid conservative thinking rather than rational scientific thinking. How this sort of thinking still exists is over my head.

Dirlewanger• 11 years ago

Yup. There's even a link in the article to another article mentioning how those states have seen little to no increase of use amongst teens.

NIMBYism is a cancerous tumor on America. It's only with time that things will change. Some things will change as boomers die off, others will be revealed as time goes on with millienials acquiring political power and such.

e402• 11 years ago

And there is no movement to make alcohol illegal due to the same argument. It's just nuts.

winkle2• 11 years ago

One point that hasn't been addressed so far is how misleading this study is. It's looking at death rates related to prescription painkiller deaths doing a time-series analysis 1999-2010 and then correlating results to states that made medical marijuana legal over that time period. It doesn't say how they eliminated any other number of causes during that period. This is merely showing correlation not causation.

As an example people who have more sex make the most money. While we would all like that to be true there's no science proving causation http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/sex-makes...

Most of the examples given in the comments here are anecdotal. Not that I disagree with the overall tone, but this is not the study to hold up and say "This is why we should legalize"

winkle2• 11 years ago

This was the site I was actually looking for as great examples of correlation http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

heynk• 11 years ago

No one implied causation. The study found that states who legalized medical marijuana found a decrease in opium mortality but roughly 20% after 2 years. Around the country, opium mortality rates are increasing. Thus it is quite reasonable to say 'the opium mortality rate is statistically significantly less in medical marijuana states than in others.' No one has claimed anything more than that, and it is in fact science.

Prescription painkiller deaths fall in medical marijuana states

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