IN STATES WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA, PAINKILLER DEATHS DROP BY 25

[luvhandles]

A jar of medical marijuana is displayed at the California Heritage Market in Los Angeles.

America has a major problem with prescription pain medications like Vicodin and OxyContin. Overdose deaths from these pharmaceutical opioids have approximately tripled since 1991, and every day 46 people die of such overdoses in the United States.

However, in the 13 states that passed laws allowing for the use of medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010, 25 percent fewer people die from opioid overdoses annually.

“The difference is quite striking,” said study co-author Colleen Barry, a health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

The shift showed up quite quickly and become visible the year after medical marijuana was accepted in each state, she told Newsweek.

I can tell you many of the patient I've worked up have told me specifically they wish they could have compassionate care instead of pain meds because of the high addiction, constipation, nausea, and the cost! I could go on and on with this but when patients tell me this it frustrates me. I had a MD in one legal state who wont prescribe it because he doesn't believe in it in reality its about the big pharmacy industry and the MDs aka doc's support it...not all but most.