IN STATES WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA, PAINKILLER DEATHS DROP BY 25

[ashylarry]

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!

The problem is the same in MA. Prior painkiller addicts have switched to elicit opioids (organic and synthetic). The increase in extremely strong Synthetic opioids found in these underground economies has sharply increased the overdose rate and MMJ has done nothing to touch it. You cant really expect it too.

MMJ is a better alternative for pain control than opioids but it must be implemented prior to opioids or at least prior to physical dependency occurring. MMJ has far less negative side effects for chronic pain control but once you allow a patients brain chemistry to be tainted by opioid dependency its too late for most. Something like 75% of long term opioid pain killer meds become addicted and that is a life long addiction. 

We can only hope that the next generation of doctors and patients seek these alternative methods so that they do not make this generations mistakes... one can only hope. 

Im sure big pharma will try and maintain control over this lucrative pain killer market so who knows what the future holds for the chronic pain community

Larry