{"id":30,"date":"2016-09-22T01:32:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T01:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/?p=30"},"modified":"2017-09-18T01:33:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T01:33:52","slug":"the-federal-government-should-consider-medical-marijuana-a-potential-ally-in-the-fight-against-opioid-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/2016\/09\/22\/the-federal-government-should-consider-medical-marijuana-a-potential-ally-in-the-fight-against-opioid-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Federal Government Should Consider Medical Marijuana a Potential Ally in the Fight Against Opioid Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published on the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics\u00a0Bill of Health<\/a>\u00a0blog.<\/i><\/p>\n

The United States is in the midst of what many are calling an\u00a0opioid epidemic<\/a>. According to the\u00a0American Society of Addiction Medicine<\/a>, more than 1.9 million people in the U.S. have a substance use disorders involving prescription pain medications, and another 580,000 have substance abuse issues with heroin. The human costs of these rates of addiction are staggering.\u00a0\u00a0 Of the approximately 50,000 lethal drug overdoses that happen each year, almost 20,000 are the result of prescription opioids, and another 10,000 are the result of heroin. While prescription painkillers traditionally aren\u2019t as dangerous as heroin, the connection between the two is well established. According to a\u00a02013 survey<\/a>, about 80% of heroin users started out abusing opioid painkillers.<\/p>\n

Despite continued efforts at nearly every level of government, the rates of opioid addiction and overdose have continued to climb. However, researchers have identified an unlikely ally that may have quietly been slowing the rise of opioid use in certain states: medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0study recently released<\/a>\u00a0by Columbia University\u2019s Mailman School of Public Health suggests that medical marijuana availability is linked to decreases in opioid usage. The study looked at opioid prevalence in autopsy reports from fatal car accidents over 14 years, and found that states that passed medical marijuana laws in that period saw a relative decrease in opioid prevalence compared to states that didn\u2019t. While this study is\u00a0making<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0splash<\/a>, it\u2019s just the most recent piece in a long line of research into the connection between medical marijuana availability and opioid use. One\u00a0study published in Health Affairs<\/a>\u00a0in July showed that states which implemented medical marijuana laws between\u00a02010-2013\u00a0saw a significant decrease in Medicare Part D prescriptions filled for medications for which marijuana is a possible alternative therapy \u2014 including opioids. Another study from 2014 showed a\u00a025% decrease<\/a>\u00a0in deaths from prescription pain medication overdoses in states that implemented medical marijuana laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as these medical marijuana success stories roll in, the federal government has been characteristically slow to adapt. While many were hopeful that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) would reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug \u2014 opening up the possibility for more research and for medical availability in all 50 states \u2014 the DEA\u00a0confirmed in August<\/a>\u00a0that it would be maintaining its Schedule I classification for marijuana. This means marijuana will remain classified with the most dangerous drugs including heroin, ecstasy, and MDMA \u2014 subject to more stringent regulation than\u00a0cocaine<\/a>, which is a Schedule II drug.<\/p>\n

Whether or not one supports full marijuana legalization, the evidence for the positive effects of medical marijuana in combating the opioid crisis is at the point where the federal government should start taking it seriously. \u00a0The DEA\u2019s position is that the science to support marijuana as a medical therapy isn\u2019t yet sufficient to warrant reclassification, pointing to the fact that the FDA has\u00a0not yet authorized<\/a>\u00a0its use for medical purposes, which is understandable. But it\u2019s not clear that argument withstands a cost-benefit analysis in light of recent research. As previously noted, states that implement medical marijuana laws see a\u00a0decrease of 25% in prescription pain medication overdose fatalities<\/a>. Given that the U.S. has about 30,000 overdose deaths a year from heroin and prescription opioids, every year the federal government waits to seriously consider nation-wide medical marijuana potentially raises the opioid fatality count by 7,500. So while the instinct to wait for more research is understandable \u2014 and one that I would support in many contexts \u2014 waiting is not a costless decision.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not clear there is much to be gained by waiting on the FDA. To get through the FDA approval process, medical marijuana would potentially go through clinical trials, but those only require the drug be tested on\u00a0about 1000 people<\/a>\u00a0for a limited time. This makes a lot of sense as a barrier to market entry for brand new chemical compounds that have previously only been administered to animals, but it\u2019s unclear that it would add significant insight in the context of medical marijuana \u2014 a substance used by an estimated\u00a022 million<\/a>\u00a0Americans in 2014.<\/p>\n

The opioid epidemic isn\u2019t going anywhere any time soon, and the impact it\u2019s having on our communities is absolutely\u00a0devastating<\/a>. Despite years of public attention and many initiatives at every level of government, there has yet to be a solution implemented to effectively combat opioid addiction on a national scale. Congress passed an attempt at a solution over the summer, but\u00a0only allocated about half of the requested funds<\/a>\u00a0to the endeavor, which doesn\u2019t bode well for its long-term chances of success. It\u2019s time to think outside the box. The substantial costs of inaction and the possible benefits of medical marijuana are such that its potential should no longer be ignored. Helping to pave the way for medical marijuana across the country is not something the federal government should do lightly \u2014 but neither is failing to recognize an ally in the fight against the opioid epidemic as its death toll continues to rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published on the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics\u00a0Bill of Health\u00a0blog. The United States is in the midst of what many are calling an\u00a0opioid epidemic. According to the\u00a0American Society of Addiction Medicine, more than 1.9 million people in the U.S. have a substance use disorders involving prescription pain medications, and another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8887,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8887"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shailin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}