IN STATES WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA, PAINKILLER DEATHS DROP BY 25

[tobaloke]

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.

The only problem still keeping Washington's opiate deathtoll up was the already massive presence of heroin use, especially in the young and inexperienced(ignorant) demographics. That hasn't seen much of a decrease especially now with the introduction of dealers cutting their smack with Fentanyl to make it yield exponentially. The kids in Seattle that are slamming anything they can into their veins, in combination much of the time, are underage, therefore don't even benefit from the MJ legalization. Pitiful, really. And don't get me started on the citys Methadone programs -- talk about trading one addiction for another!