Patients Use Cannabis Instead of Opioids to Treat Pain, Anxiety and Depression, Study Finds

Authored by saludmovil.com and submitted by ekser

Patients are ditching opioids and instead using cannabis to treat pain, anxiety, and depression mostly in states where pot is legal, according to a new study.

Published in the Journal of Pain Research, the results show that 46 percent of people who used cannabis at least once within the previous 90 days used it as a substitute for prescription drugs that treat pain, anxiety, and depression. The investigators surveyed nearly 3,000 respondents from all over the United States (as well as participants from Canada and Europe). The findings serve as the latest bit of news demonstrating a growing trend of medical cannabis use for conditions traditionally treated with prescription medications.

Survey participants responded to the following question: “Have you ever used cannabis as a substitute for prescription drugs (yes/no)?” Upon answering “yes,” respondents listed the medications that they replaced with cannabis in additional space provided. The results? The most commonly replaced drugs were painkillers (narcotics and opioids) at a nearly 36 percent substitution rate, while anxiety medications (anxiolytics and benzodiazepines) and antidepressants each were replaced with cannabis approximately 13 percent of the time.

Although there has yet to be any definitive medical consensus regarding the effectiveness of cannabis to treat pain, anxiety, and depression, it seems to function as an adequate replacement for prescription medications among medical cannabis users with these conditions.

sniggly on June 27th, 2017 at 18:39 UTC »

mostly in states where pot is legal

From the article, page 2 (bolding mine):

All 50 states were represented in the study, though over half of the respondents were from states that have legalized medical cannabis use: Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado. There was not a statistically significant difference in the rate of substitution in states where medical cannabis was legal versus states that had not legalized its use, suggesting that accessibility of legal medical cannabis is not the driving factor for its rise in popularity in treating pain, anxiety, and depression.

SpyderDM on June 27th, 2017 at 16:53 UTC »

This is why heroin abuse starts going way down when states legalize medical marijuana... the real gateway drug is less often in the picture (prescription opioids).

Marijuana smokers have been screaming for decades that it's not a gateway drug and there's tons of evidence proving that to be true.

mattreyu on June 27th, 2017 at 15:21 UTC »

This seems like a good thing, since medical marijuana seems to have decreased the amount of hospitalizations related to opioid dependence or overdose.