7 ms·

Here's an article that references the study they're likely referring to: https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid-usage/ https://www.rt.com/usa/35965

Here's an article that references the study they're likely referring to: https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid-usage/ https://www.rt.com/usa/359655-marijuana-laws-opioid-usage/ The jist is: measuring opioid usage in people after a fatal car crash, states with medical marijuana had much lower rates of opioid usage. I haven't read the study, and while that measurement may be a bit dubious (pun?) I think the conclusion is probably correct. A lot of people don't do illegal drugs, but will gladly and happily do legal ones. Opioids are legally prescribed and incredibly addictive, making them ripe for abuse by people who wouldn't normally be "drug addicts." With marijuana being legal it provides a non-addictive means of pain relief that's a much more pleasant and safe alternative to opioids. Hell even acetaminophen is vastly more dangerous than marijuana (and a cause of liver failure). I think what Spicer said in the article is insane. I can only hope states fight back tooth and nail if the federal government attempts to "crack down." Marijuana is one of the few drugs we can do that's nearly harmless... Well, relative to any other drug we can do (alcohol or tobacco). Edit: updates for grammar and clarity (damn you autocorrect!).

heygrady 10y ago
There is a US News article[1] that references a study by the AJPH[2]. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/study-opioid-use-decreases-in-states-that-legalize-medical-marijuana https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/study-opioid... [2] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303426 http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.3...
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
The opioid crisis is a product of, ironically, crackdowns on opioid abuse. For people with chronic pain, opioids may be the only option to live with it, and they need frequent doses. If it gets hard to acquire them because of “abuse-preventing” bureaucracy, they are forced to turn to the black market, not out of addiction, but dependency for pain relief. There is a benefit to legal marijuana that it might be chosen instead of harder drugs, perhaps, but I don't think it should be mixed up with painkillers, which are their own issue.
- jseliger 10y ago
  That's not the argument of Quinones's book Dreamland: http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale-americas-opiate-epidemic-must-read-grant-writers http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale-ame..., and Dreamland, like most other books and articles I've seen, argues that availability and over-prescribing have been major contributors to the crisis.
  - oxide 10y ago
    If you can believe it, both are true. It sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't as cut and dry as our brains might like it to be, or like a writer might like it to be. They are both over and under-prescribed. Pain is both over and undertreated every day in every state in the country. There are pill mills, there are stingy ER's and clinics, it goes both ways. It isn't one or the other. On one hand, you have doctor shopping. On the other, you have legitimate chronic pain sufferers turning to the street to make ends meet. My grandparents bought pills from the black market at black market prices to fill the gap of under treatment. At the same time, people were paying cash-only pain management clinics for prescriptions which they were filling multiple times. There will always be abusers, lawmakers and activists need to realize that you can't regulate or price someone out of an addiction (or a dependency.) There is a staggering difference between addiction (which usually involves abuse) and dependency (which usually involves no abuse) Addiction to prescription opiates leads to one of two roads. The problem road is heroin. For example: Let's say you get addicted because you abuse the pills prescribed to you after surgery. You continue to maintain your addiction with drugs purchased from the street, then at some point you remember that heroin exists and is dirt cheap compared to the dollar per milligram you were paying for oxycodone. Suddenly, heroin doesn't seem so evil. Now you have a new perspective about heroin, mainly that it's cheaper and more potent than prescription pills. Dependency, meanwhile, can be maintained under a doctors supervision for years. Pain can be managed with prescription opiates safely and effectively, increasing the quality of life of someone who suffers from pain every single day. It's a multi-faceted issue with many variables, you can't really reduce it down to one sentence or another. There is no easy solution, either. You can't under-prescribe or prosecute doctors, that just hurts the people suffering the most. I know what the solution isn't, though: banning fucking kratom. this entire thing is a complete and total structure fire, and the DEA is trying to immediately move to Schedule I a powdered leaf that stops withdrawals for addicts. For the opiate naive, taking powdered kratom leaf results in a light buzz. For an opiate addict, it's no buzz + immediate relief of withdrawal symptoms. There is always methadone and suboxone, but these drugs are extremely long-acting. Meaning that if and when you come off of them, you will be in withdrawals for weeks or even months. For comparison, short-acting opiates like heroin withdrawals last about a week, maybe two. Now that you know this, it might not surprise you to hear that methadone patients often switch back to shorter-acting drugs like heroin to attempt to get clean. Ironic, isn't it?
ivmi 10y ago
Marijuana use is correlated with improved outcomes for patients in opiate addiction programs. That said, I'm not sure what you mean by marijuana being more pleasant than opioids. Have you done both?
- rhizome 10y ago
  I had a bike crash about six months ago and was prescribed a handful of Norco, which is about the least opioid opiate around these days. If the phrase "worst constipation of your life" does not yet have meaning...
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  I was prescribed oxycodone after getting hit by a car and my liver couldn't process the Tylenol in the pIll adequately and I was feeling nauseous and faint. I collapsed in my primary care doctor's office when getting looked over a couple days after leaving ER. I decided to just bear through the searing pain than risk permanent organ damage.
lupin_sansei 10y ago
This was interesting: "Based on his review of the scientific literature, between 10 to 30% of regular users will develop dependency. Only about 9% will have a serious addiction" https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/201012/is-marijuana-addictive https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/201012...
- ImTalking 10y ago
  That 9% is a sham. Here's the critiera for an substance addiction which only needs 2 to be checked. Note the 1st 4 points and the Tolerance point. It's easy to see how 9% checked 2 of those points (I would). - The substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended. - There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful effort to cut down or control use of the substance. - A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance, use the substance, or recover from its effects. - Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use the substance. - Recurrent use of the substance resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home. - Continued use of the substance despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of its use. - Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of use of the substance. - Recurrent use of the substance in situations in which it is physically hazardous. - Use of the substance is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance. - Tolerance, as defined by either of the following: - A need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or desired effect. - A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance. - Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following: - The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for that substance (as specified in the DSM- 5 for each substance). - The substance (or a closely related substance) is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
oculusthrift 10y ago
can you not link rt please. we don't need Putin's mouthpiece

heygrady 10y ago

There is a US News article[1] that references a study by the AJPH[2]. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/study-opioid-use-decreases-in-states-that-legalize-medical-marijuana https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/study-opioid... [2] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303426 http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.3...

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

The opioid crisis is a product of, ironically, crackdowns on opioid abuse. For people with chronic pain, opioids may be the only option to live with it, and they need frequent doses. If it gets hard to acquire them because of “abuse-preventing” bureaucracy, they are forced to turn to the black market, not out of addiction, but dependency for pain relief. There is a benefit to legal marijuana that it might be chosen instead of harder drugs, perhaps, but I don't think it should be mixed up with painkillers, which are their own issue.

jseliger 10y ago
That's not the argument of Quinones's book Dreamland: http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale-americas-opiate-epidemic-must-read-grant-writers http://seliger.com/2016/10/04/review-dreamland-true-tale-ame..., and Dreamland, like most other books and articles I've seen, argues that availability and over-prescribing have been major contributors to the crisis.
- oxide 10y ago
  If you can believe it, both are true. It sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't as cut and dry as our brains might like it to be, or like a writer might like it to be. They are both over and under-prescribed. Pain is both over and undertreated every day in every state in the country. There are pill mills, there are stingy ER's and clinics, it goes both ways. It isn't one or the other. On one hand, you have doctor shopping. On the other, you have legitimate chronic pain sufferers turning to the street to make ends meet. My grandparents bought pills from the black market at black market prices to fill the gap of under treatment. At the same time, people were paying cash-only pain management clinics for prescriptions which they were filling multiple times. There will always be abusers, lawmakers and activists need to realize that you can't regulate or price someone out of an addiction (or a dependency.) There is a staggering difference between addiction (which usually involves abuse) and dependency (which usually involves no abuse) Addiction to prescription opiates leads to one of two roads. The problem road is heroin. For example: Let's say you get addicted because you abuse the pills prescribed to you after surgery. You continue to maintain your addiction with drugs purchased from the street, then at some point you remember that heroin exists and is dirt cheap compared to the dollar per milligram you were paying for oxycodone. Suddenly, heroin doesn't seem so evil. Now you have a new perspective about heroin, mainly that it's cheaper and more potent than prescription pills. Dependency, meanwhile, can be maintained under a doctors supervision for years. Pain can be managed with prescription opiates safely and effectively, increasing the quality of life of someone who suffers from pain every single day. It's a multi-faceted issue with many variables, you can't really reduce it down to one sentence or another. There is no easy solution, either. You can't under-prescribe or prosecute doctors, that just hurts the people suffering the most. I know what the solution isn't, though: banning fucking kratom. this entire thing is a complete and total structure fire, and the DEA is trying to immediately move to Schedule I a powdered leaf that stops withdrawals for addicts. For the opiate naive, taking powdered kratom leaf results in a light buzz. For an opiate addict, it's no buzz + immediate relief of withdrawal symptoms. There is always methadone and suboxone, but these drugs are extremely long-acting. Meaning that if and when you come off of them, you will be in withdrawals for weeks or even months. For comparison, short-acting opiates like heroin withdrawals last about a week, maybe two. Now that you know this, it might not surprise you to hear that methadone patients often switch back to shorter-acting drugs like heroin to attempt to get clean. Ironic, isn't it?

ivmi 10y ago

Marijuana use is correlated with improved outcomes for patients in opiate addiction programs. That said, I'm not sure what you mean by marijuana being more pleasant than opioids. Have you done both?

rhizome 10y ago
I had a bike crash about six months ago and was prescribed a handful of Norco, which is about the least opioid opiate around these days. If the phrase "worst constipation of your life" does not yet have meaning...
hkmurakami 10y ago
I was prescribed oxycodone after getting hit by a car and my liver couldn't process the Tylenol in the pIll adequately and I was feeling nauseous and faint. I collapsed in my primary care doctor's office when getting looked over a couple days after leaving ER. I decided to just bear through the searing pain than risk permanent organ damage.

lupin_sansei 10y ago

This was interesting: "Based on his review of the scientific literature, between 10 to 30% of regular users will develop dependency. Only about 9% will have a serious addiction" https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/201012/is-marijuana-addictive https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/201012...

ImTalking 10y ago
That 9% is a sham. Here's the critiera for an substance addiction which only needs 2 to be checked. Note the 1st 4 points and the Tolerance point. It's easy to see how 9% checked 2 of those points (I would). - The substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended. - There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful effort to cut down or control use of the substance. - A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance, use the substance, or recover from its effects. - Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use the substance. - Recurrent use of the substance resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home. - Continued use of the substance despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of its use. - Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of use of the substance. - Recurrent use of the substance in situations in which it is physically hazardous. - Use of the substance is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance. - Tolerance, as defined by either of the following: - A need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or desired effect. - A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance. - Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following: - The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for that substance (as specified in the DSM- 5 for each substance). - The substance (or a closely related substance) is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

oculusthrift 10y ago

can you not link rt please. we don't need Putin's mouthpiece