Can medical marijuana replace pharmaceutical pain medications?

  • Cannabis has been used medically to treat pain for centuries
  • Latest study conducted on cannabis as a pain treatment found 97% of patients “strongly agreed” that they were able to decrease the number of opiates they consume when they also used cannabis
  • Findings could pose serious risk to the future of pharmaceutical opioid-based pain medications, which are the leading cause of accidental death in the US
  • Head researcher called for medical professionals to “get over their reefer madness”

After more than 28,000 people died from opioid abuse in 2014 in the USA, researchers from

the University of California Berkley and HelloMD, one of the largest medical cannabis communities in the USA, conducted a study on cannabis as a substitute for pain medication.

Can cannabis replace painkillers
Which would you choose?

Researchers examined the use of cannabis as a substitute for opioid-based pain medication by collecting survey data from 2897 medical cannabis patients. They found that nearly 100% of respondents claiming cannabis has helped them decrease their use of prescription opioids to treat pain.

Nearly 3,000 patients, who use both opioid and non-opioid based pain medication, were surveyed for the study.

While only 34% of the sample reported using opioid-based pain medication in the past 6 months, participants overwhelmingly reported that medical marijuana provided equal pain relief to their other medications, but without the unwanted side effects.

One of the most striking findings from the study was that 97% of respondents “strongly agreed/agreed” that they could decrease use of their opioid medications when using cannabis.

Cannabis for chronic pain

92% of participants also “strongly agreed/agreed” that they prefer cannabis to treat their medical condition.

An amazing 81% of respondents “strongly agreed/ agreed” that using cannabis alone was more effective than taking cannabis with opioids.

It’s past time for the medical profession to get over their reefer madness and start working with the medical cannabis movement and industry to slow down the destruction being caused by the overprescribing and overuse of opioids.
– heard researcher Amanda Reiman

Chronic pain, and how to deal with it, is a growing issue across the world, particularly in the United States. 11.2% of US adults affected by chronic pain, with 3-4% of these patients are placed on long-term opioid prescriptions.

If medical marijuana can truly replace a significant amount of these opioid-based painkillers, it is no wonder large pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars lobbying American politicians to uphold prohibition.

Currently, pharmaceutical companies make up to $635 billion dollars per year selling painkillers in the US. Medical cannabis poses a very real threat to this, to the point where

pharmaceutical company, Insys, spent $500,000 to block legalization in Arizona.

cannabis 0 deaths legal drugs 20,000 deaths
There has never been a recorded death attributed to cannabis

Commenting on the study’s findings, heard researcher Amanda Reiman, said: “Cannabis has been used throughout the world for thousands of years to treat pain and other physical and mental health conditions.

“Patients have been telling us for decades that this practice is producing better outcomes than the use of opioid-based medications.

“It’s past time for the medical profession to get over their reefer madness and start working with the medical cannabis movement and industry to slow down the destruction being caused by the overprescribing and overuse of opioids.”

Have you replaced dangerous pharmaceutical drugs with medical marijuana?

References and further Reading

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p1218-drug-overdose.html

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/can.2017.0012 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/rr/rr6501e1.htm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001005