Despite what the Trump administration tells you, marijuana can actually help put an end to America’s addiction to painkillers.
A new study has found that the rate of hospitalization related to opioid painkillers dropped at an average of 23 percent in states that allow medical marijuana, reports Reuters.
The study, which was published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence report, also observed a 13 percent drop in the average of opioid overdoses in said states.
In order to find their conclusions, researchers from the University of California San Diego analyzed hospitalization records from 27 states — nine of which provide legal access to medical marijuana — from the years 1997 to 2014.
“Medical marijuana laws may have reduced hospitalizations related to opioid pain relievers,” Yuyan Shi, the study’s author and University of California San Diego public health professor, told Reuters Monday. “This study and a few others provided some evidence regarding the potential positive benefits of legalizing marijuana to reduce opioid use and abuse, but they are still preliminary.”
These findings may come as a major blow to the current presidential administration, which has put a doubt into the future of marijuana legalization. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated in February that he believes marijuana is actually a gateway drug to painkillers, while Attorney General Jeff Sessions considers cannabis to be “slightly less awful than heroin.”
Despite the current White House’s reefer madness, several studies have proven otherwise. A 2016 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association found a 25 percent reduction of opioid-related deaths in states with legal medical cannabis, while last year’s Monitoring the Future survey found that college students are using more marijuana and less painkillers.
The correlation between pot and painkillers has become so pronounced that even the Centers for Disease Control instructed doctors last year to stop screening pain patients for marijuana use.
SOURCE: SFGATE.com Author: Oscar Pascual