Too bad Newsweek does not tell their readers the REAL scientific evidence – that pot use ACTUALLY INCREASES opiate use and pain reports …. but that is NOT “the agenda” ….
… but do NOT let science get in the way of “good propaganda” ….
Here is the Real Science!
THE LANCET JOURNAL, 2018
Bleyer, A. and Barnes, B. (2018). Opioid Death Rate Acceleration in Jurisdictions Legalizing Marijuana Use, JAMA Intern Med. 2018;178(9):1280-1281. And Campbell, G., Hall, W. D., Peacock, A., Lintzeris, N., Bruno, R., Larance, B., … & Blyth, F. (2018). Effect of cannabis use in people with chronic non-cancer pain prescribed opioids: findings from a 4-year prospective cohort study. The Lancet Public Health, 3(7), e341-e350.
A 4-year prospective study followed medical marijuana patients with a dual opioid prescription and found that marijuana use had no positive impact on opioid use or reduced prescribing. Further, even though they found that marijuana users were more likely to rate the drug as means of effective pain relief, other self-reported pain measures indicated the opposite. Users reported greater pain severity and more day-to-day interference than those that did not use marijuana.
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, 2017 AND JOURNAL OF ADDICTION MEDICINE, 2018
Olfson, M., Wall, M. M., Liu, S. M., & Blanco, C. (2017). Cannabis use and risk of prescription opioid use disorder in the United States. American Journal of Psychiatry, 175(1), 47-53.
Caputi, T. & Humphreys, K. (2018). Medical marijuana users are more likely to use prescription drugs medically and nonmedically.
Journal of Addiction Medicine, 12(4):295–299.
Over 30,000 American adults were sampled and researchers found that marijuana users were more than twice as likely to move on to abuse prescription opioids – even when controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, other substance use disorders, and a variety of psychiatric disorders and family history. In another study, medical marijuana users were significantly more likely to report the use of prescription drugs in the past 12 months.
PATIENT SAFETY IN SURGERY, 2018
Salottolo, K., Peck, L., Tanner II, A., Carrick, M. M., Madayag, R., McGuire, E., & Bar-Or, D. (2018).
The grass is not always greener: a multi-institutional pilot study of marijuana use and acute pain management following traumatic injury. Patient Safety in Surgery, 12(1), 16.
Researchers found that patients reporting marijuana use actually experienced more pain on average when admitted to the hospital following a traumatic injury than those that did not. Compared to non-users, they required more opioid medication to cope with the pain and consistently rated their pain higher during the duration of their stay.
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, 2016
Hasin, D. S., Kerridge, B. T., Saha, T. D., Huang, B., Pickering, R., Smith, S. M., … & Grant, B. F. (2016). Prevalence and correlates of DSM-5 cannabis use disorder, 2012-2013: findings from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions–III. American Journal of Psychiatry, 173(6), 588-599.
Regular use of marijuana is linked with increased risk of developing cannabis use disorder, higher rates of mental illness and higher rates of co-substance abuse with alcohol, among other drugs.