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View Full Version : Attorney General Sessions wants to know the science on marijuana and opioids. Here it is.




CaseyJones
02-28-2017, 03:05 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/28/attorney-general-sessions-wants-to-know-the-science-on-marijuana-and-opioids-here-it-is/


Speaking this morning before the National Association of Attorneys General, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed doubt that marijuana could help mitigate the opioid abuse epidemic.

“I see a line in The Washington Post today [link added] that I remember from the '80s,” Sessions said. "'Marijuana is a cure for opiate abuse.' Give me a break. This is the kind of argument that's been made out there to just — almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana or even its benefits. I doubt that's true. Maybe science will prove I'm wrong.”

The stakes are pretty high here. After all, opioids killed 33,000 people in 2015, up from around 8,000 in 1999. As the head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Sessions oversees the Drug Enforcement Administration, which just last year reaffirmed its belief that marijuana has no medical value and hence should remain illegal (which makes it substantially more difficult for researchers to conduct studies).

Here's a run-down of where the evidence on marijuana and opiates stands.

Marijuana is great at treating chronic pain.

This is the big finding, and the one from which all the others spring. Surveying the entire known universe of studies about the medical efficacies of cannabis, the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering found “strong evidence” showing marijuana is effective at dealing with chronic pain in adults, relative to a placebo. The National Academies study is the most thorough review of the literature on marijuana to date, conducted by some of the nation's leading substance use researchers.

Across numerous trials and experiments, the report found, people treated for pain with marijuana were “more likely to experience a significant reduction in pain symptoms” compared to a placebo or doing nothing at all.

This is huge news, considering the annual opiate overdose numbers cited above. Americans consume roughly 80 percent of the world's opiate painkiller supply. The drugs are often prescribed for long-term treatment of chronic pain, a practice that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now trying to discourage. Prescription painkillers and other opioids are highly addictive, and taking too much of them can easily kill you.

Marijuana is habit-forming too, but not nearly as much as opiate drugs like heroin. It also has no known lethal dose — you basically can't consume large enough quantities of marijuana at a fast enough pace for overdose death to become a concern the way it is with say, OxyContin or fentanyl — or alcohol for that matter.

There’s been a lot of research done into this question in recent years. Here’s what it says:

States with medical marijuana laws see fewer opiate deaths.

According to a 2014 study in JAMA Internal Medicine, states with medical marijuana laws between 1999 and 2010 saw, on average, about 25 percent fewer opiate overdose deaths than states without such laws. What's more, the effect of a medical marijuana law appeared to grow over time — more lives were saved each additional year after the laws' implementation, suggesting an effect from more people taking advantage of the programs.

This, of course, is just an observational study. It looks at the correlation between medical marijuana uptake and opiate deaths, but it isn't able to say that the former definitively caused the decline in the latter. But these findings were soon borne out by other research.

Access to medical marijuana dispensaries is associated with less prescription painkiller abuse, and fewer overdose deaths.

A 2015 working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the presence of medical marijuana dispensaries in a state was linked to a 15 to 35 percent decrease in admissions to substance abuse treatment centers, along with a similar decline in overdose deaths.

This study was somewhat more rigorous than the previous paper, drawing on a larger data set that stood up to greater statistical scrutiny. As one of the authors told me at the time, “If this is for real, it means that there are other ways that are less dangerous [than prescription painkillers] for people to deal with chronic pain.”

Medical marijuana is associated with fewer opiate-induced car crashes.

A 2016 Columbia University paper zeroed in on a different facet of the substance abuse problem — auto accidents. The researchers found that after a state passes a medical marijuana law, fewer drivers in those states test positive for opioids after fatal car crashes.

The take-home here is pretty simple: “in states with medical marijuana laws, fewer individuals are using opioids,” the authors conclude.

Painkiller prescriptions fall sharply after medical marijuana laws are introduced.

A novel study conducted last year looked at what happened to Medicare Part D painkiller prescriptions after states passed medical marijuana laws.

It found that the typical physician in a medical marijuana state prescribed 1,826 fewer painkiller doses for Medicare patients in a given year. Why? Some seniors don't need painkillers if they have access to medical pot (related: seniors and people in late middle age are among the fastest growing marijuana use demographics).

Among chronic pain patients, marijuana use is associated with less opiate use.

A study published last year in the Journal of Pain found chronic pain patients who reported marijuana use were 64 percent less likely to report opiate use, more likely to report good quality of life, and less likely to report negative side effects from their medication.

“This study suggests that many chronic pain patients are essentially substituting medical cannabis for opioids and other medications for chronic pain treatment, and finding the benefit and side effect profile of cannabis to be greater than these other classes of medications,” the authors conclude. “More research is needed to validate this finding.”

* * *

“More research is needed.” Researchers universally say they need to do more studies to tease out the nature of the relationships seen in the studies above. In particular, what's sorely lacking are controlled experiments that allow doctors to treat either chronic pain or opiate dependency with medical marijuana.

But as of right now that research is incredibly difficult to do because of how marijuana is classified by the federal government. As a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the government has deemed that marijuana has “no medically accepted use.”

Researchers can still work with it, but it requires jumping through an onerous system of legal hoops that can sometimes take years to navigate. It took nearly a decade for one researcher trying to use marijuana to treat PTSD in military veterans to obtain all the approvals necessary.

Those roadblocks have a chilling effect on marijuana research, as outlined in a 2015 Brookings Institution report. Meanwhile, while researchers fight red tape, tens of thousands of opiate users are dying.

The scientific evidence available so far indicates marijuana holds great promise for mitigating the effects of the opiate epidemic. Researchers desperately want to know more, but as long as the Drug Enforcement Administration considers marijuana a Schedule 1 controlled substance, they'll have a hard time getting more answers.

Zippyjuan
02-28-2017, 03:19 PM
Colorado has the longest time with marijuana laws. How has that impacted opiate use in the state? The above article suggest it should be declining. Article from just December:


States with medical marijuana laws see fewer opiate deaths.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/19/opioid-abuse-overdose-death-surge-narcan/


Facing surge in opioid abuse and overdose deaths, Colorado distributes 2,500 doses of Narcan


AURORA — Facing a surge in opioid abuse and related overdose deaths, Colorado authorities on Monday unveiled a plan to distribute the life-saving drug naloxone — known by its trade name, Narcan — to first responders across the state’s hardest hit areas.

The program “will begin saving lives within days,” said Rob Valuck, head of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and a University of Colorado pharmaceuticals professor. “(It will) will save dozens to hundreds of lives over the coming year here in Colorado. It’s just critically important.”

<snip>

Opioid use has reached crisis levels across the nation, including in Colorado, where heroin overdoses are up almost 350 percent in the past five years, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA says heroin has become its main focus in the state.


Also: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/16/degette-calls-congress-fund-fight-against-opiates/


Fight against opioid, heroin epidemic needs more funding, says Diana DeGette

Colorado ranks near the top when it comes to prescription opioid abuse


https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-denver-post/20170104/281573765370941


Opioid Deaths Outnumbering Homicides

specsaregood
02-28-2017, 03:30 PM
Colorado has the longest time with marijuana laws. How has that impacted opiate use in the state? The above article suggest it should be declining. Article from just December:

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/19/opioid-abuse-overdose-death-surge-narcan/

Also: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/16/degette-calls-congress-fund-fight-against-opiates/

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-denver-post/20170104/281573765370941

Just because it has surged there, does not mean that MJ hasn't actually helped it decline from what it could have been. Why you say? Because in that same time frame the Federal govt changed how doctors can treat patients and limited how many pills they prescribe -- causing addicted patients to seek out unsafe heroin from the streets.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/15/feds-pill-crackdown-drives-pain-patients-to-heroin.html

The war on prescription-drug abuse has created ‘opioid refugees’ who can’t get prescriptions for legal painkillers filled and turn to illegal ones instead.

Zippyjuan
02-28-2017, 03:32 PM
Doesn't say medical marijuana has led to less drug abuse- legal or illegal. Also not saying that it cannot be useful in addiction treatment programs. They are often different types of users- like beer vs whiskey drinkers.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/24/health/sean-spicer-opioids-marijuana-bn/


Yet when it comes to recreational marijuana and opioid addiction, many experts say there's no definitive evidence to support an exclusive connection between them. Factors fueling the opioid crisis have been identified -- and none is related to marijuana use.

"We know why there's an opioid addiction epidemic. ... I don't think there is really debate," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

"It's because we have overexposed the population to prescription opioids," he said. "The driver behind that increase in opioid addiction has been an overprescribing of pain medicine, overexposing the population to a highly addictive drug."

Some patients experiencing pain thrive and find solace through prescription opioids. But there has been a 15-year increase in opioid overdose deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Along with the increased use of prescription pain medications, there are other factors fueling the opioid addiction crisis, wrote Dr. David Fiellin, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine who conducts research on opioid treatment strategies, in an email.

"There are a variety of factors contributing to the current situation including increased prescribing of opioids for pain, the increased purity and lower costs of heroin and other illicit opioids, and increased availability of high potency opioids including fentanyl. Economic, psychiatric and social factors including changing norms regarding substance use have also contributed," Fiellin wrote.

buck000
02-28-2017, 03:32 PM
Someone should tell Mr. Sessions that his government thinks it's OK. ;)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507

specsaregood
02-28-2017, 03:33 PM
Doesn't say medical marijuana has led to less drug abuse- legal or illegal.

Doesn't say that MJ use hasn't decreased the numbers of possible opioid overdoses either.

Zippyjuan
02-28-2017, 03:36 PM
Doesn't say that MJ use hasn't decreased the numbers of possible opioid overdoses either.

That is impossible to say either way. The opioid problem is over- prescription of opioid medications- not whether or not marijuana is legal.

Root
02-28-2017, 03:51 PM
I was getting depressed about all the other cannabis threads and Trumpism in general so I decided to try to overdose on some edibles.

Nah, just kidding. I took a hard fall skiing at about 25 mph on Sunday and I've got a bit of whiplash in my neck. A little edibles and 2 alleve later, and my neck isn't bothering me at all. In fact, I'm off to the gym.

The Trumpism is depressing tho.

CPUd
02-28-2017, 03:55 PM
http://i.imgur.com/yWEGqhF.jpg

fisharmor
02-28-2017, 03:59 PM
Marijuana is habit-forming too
Sure, but coming off of a daily pot habit is nothing like opioids.

Provided you're not using pot to mask bigger problems in your life, stopping a pot habit is more like the changes in your body when moving from a wet to a dry climate, or changing your winter blood out for summer blood. It's a day or two of adjustment, and nothing more.

phill4paul
02-28-2017, 05:06 PM
What the hell does he care? For him it's all about the law.

bunklocoempire
02-28-2017, 05:29 PM
Try liberty, along with the facts of supply and demand and man's nature, ya spineless white-haired trouble-peddling fool.

http://web.archive.org/web/20170228232235/http://kdvr.com/2017/02/28/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-i-am-dubious-about-marijuana/amp/

After praise from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for vowing to crack down on illegal drugs, Sessions agreed that “crime does follow drugs.” :rolleyes:

“Drugs today are more powerful and more addictive,” Sessions said. “I am dubious about marijuana — I’m not sure we’re going to be a better, healthier nation if we have marijuana being sold at every corner grocery store.”

He said he also plans to reduce the availability of illicit prescription drugs.

Gee, ya think crime will follow?:mad:

Zippyjuan
02-28-2017, 05:38 PM
Try liberty, along with the facts of supply and demand and man's nature, ya spineless white-haired trouble-peddling fool.

http://web.archive.org/web/20170228232235/http://kdvr.com/2017/02/28/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-i-am-dubious-about-marijuana/amp/


Gee, ya think crime will follow?:mad:

Do you think that opiate addiction will go away if it is freely available?

phill4paul
02-28-2017, 05:50 PM
Do you think that opiate addiction will go away if it is freely available?

Those that are addicted to opiates are..addicted to opiates. Why should I care? Or you. Or Sessions.

dannno
02-28-2017, 06:03 PM
I've been stoned for the last 16 years, I've smoked herb with thousands of people and only witnessed one person do heroin, one time in my life.


Do you think that opiate addiction will go away if it is freely available?

It would be reduced in the longrun if cannabis and opiates were freely available.

Have you ever vaporized opium? Very tasty. Very relaxing. Not incredibly addictive like heroin. You can get it straight off the poppy flower, no processing required.

I personally don't like doing opiates unless I'm in pain. I tried oxycontin one time, and I've done opium once, I guess it's ok if you wanna sit around and relax.. I find cannabis a lot more stimulating, and it is also great for relaxing.

Zippyjuan
02-28-2017, 06:23 PM
Those that are addicted to opiates are..addicted to opiates. Why should I care? Or you. Or Sessions.

Do you care if they steal from you to pay for their habit? Do you care if you pay for their medical treatments?

phill4paul
02-28-2017, 06:28 PM
Do you care if they steal from you to pay for their habit? Do you care if you pay for their medical treatments?

If they try to steal from me then their doom is upon them. Not me. Why would I want to pay for their medical treatments?

NorthCarolinaLiberty
03-02-2017, 11:46 PM
Do you care if they steal from you to pay for their habit? Do you care if you pay for their medical treatments?


Stealing is not a consensual activity.

timosman
03-02-2017, 11:49 PM
Do you care if they steal from you to pay for their habit? Do you care if you pay for their medical treatments?

Do you care if they start online trolling to pay for their habit?:cool: