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The Free Thought Project reports via AlterNet
There's one thing that appears to be saving more lives during the opioid epidemic than anything else--medical cannabis. While government touts meaningless attempts at addressing the problem--paying lip service to the people while protecting Big Pharma's profits and filling jails--people are saving themselves by turning to an ancient plant.
Yet another scientific study has confirmed that medical cannabis access reduces harm from opioid abuse among the population. A recent study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependency journal found that states with legal medical cannabis experience fewer hospitalizations related to opioids.
"Medical marijuana legalization was associated with 23% and 13% reductions in hospitalizations related to opioid dependence or abuse and [opioid pain reliever] OPR overdose, respectively; lagged effects were observed after policy implementation."
Researchers from the University of California analyzed hospital administrative records for the period of 1997 to 2014. The author reported:
"This study demonstrated significant reductions on OPR- (opioid pain reliever) related hospitalizations associated with the implementation of medical marijuana policies. ... We found reductions in OPR-related hospitalizations immediately after the year of policy implementation as well as delayed reductions in the third post-policy year."
The data also show that cannabis-related hospitalizations did not increase after legalization, contrary to what prohibitionists would have you believe.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 17 2017, @06:23PM (23 children)
This seem like an odd story. They seem to be grabbing things left and right and moshing them together - perhaps it was written while high on weed. Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else? I guess that is it - or that it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose. A weed-dealers bullet or the crime that follow in the illegal weed market is probably just as deadly as any other illegal drug market. Legalization might solve a few of those issues but as noted neither "Big Pharma" or the various Drug cartels south of the border are to pleased about it.
That said this seems like it has very little to do with the War on Drugs, an effort to stop illegal drugs and the creation of new addicts. As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to. The legality doesn't change the addiction in that regard. That the War on drugs is a giant failure is probably not really the issue here. The War on Drugs seems to have had a few other "bonus effects" such as propping up various little dictators in South America with military hardware and assistance so they wouldn't fall to the evils of communism. That seems to have been just as important as stopping drug trafficking.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @06:32PM
You have the comprehension of somebody who's been drinking too much.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @06:35PM (6 children)
Hehe
it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose
Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to
Weed is not chemically addictive.
This is the problem, so much misinformation due to the War on Drugs.
As for the style of writing, what are YOU on? Citing multiple studies to make a point is "grabbing things left and right and moshing them together"?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 17 2017, @07:10PM (4 children)
> Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
What if a 200-pound bale of the stuff falls on your head? What then, ese?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @07:20PM
Call OSHA!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rts008 on Friday March 17 2017, @07:41PM
Call it a gift from 'heaven', and find a truck?
Is this a trick question?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:52PM
Then you call Cheech & Chong and get some XXL Zigzags... And some munchies.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:38PM
You call Dominoes. Duh.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:20AM
As you said "chemically addictive" I must agree, but I have encountered examples of people who where psychologically addicted, so if you can be addicted to video games or iPhones, you can be addicted to marijuana. There are reasonable arguments over whether this is the correct use of the language. I don't tend to think so, but I seem to be in the minority.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday March 17 2017, @06:40PM (7 children)
It's so hard that nobody has ever managed to do it in the entire documented history of humanity.
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects. To the degree that it is psychologically addictive, it appears to be no more so than just about any other daily habit, e.g. my near-daily dose of perfectly legal chocolate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:48PM (2 children)
In order to overdose on weed you'd have to either purposefully do it or you'd have to be caught in the middle of a field as it burns. I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
Medical marijuana though, I'm completely for that. I don't think there's a viable argument in favor of keeping that illegal. And even the argument in favor of keeping it illegal for recreational use is getting weaker and weaker as time goes by.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:26AM
I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
So you're in favor of preemptively making/keeping things illegal until studies are done that show them to be safe? Because that is the exact opposite of what a free society would do.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:27AM
There is reasonable evidence that marijuana is damaging to people before their late adolescent neuron pruning is done at around 23. This isn't convincing evidence, as I don't believe the study has ever been replicated. It's also true that the effect detected was not large. And I don't believe this is reasonable ground for legislation, though I do believe that it's reasonable ground for parents to ensure that the effect was tested by somebody else's children.
A thing worthy of note is that many of the experimental tests of hemp extracts for medical potency promote them as not resulting in people getting high. This is a useful characteristic in a medicine, but shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not it was legal.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Post-Nihilist on Friday March 17 2017, @09:23PM
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects
If you try hard enough or use a concentrate like shatter or hash oil, there is some physical addiction to be found. Speaking from experience, extremely heavy prolonged cannabis use withdrawal symptoms are alike to a 3 days long mild cold concomitant to about a week of sleeplessness/bad sleep. Those symptoms feel quite different than the psychological cravings and unlike the cravings those symptoms are not suppressed by a small dose of a benzodiazepine like Rivotril (clonazepam) .
But do not take that as a warning against weed legalization: when you have the need to consume burn in your DNA, you will get addicted to something, anything. Compared to alcoholism, opiate addiction, cocaine addiction, sex addiction and gambling, weed addiction is by far the less damaging option.
If you want some active substances where addiction is physically impossible, magic mushroom (mostly psylocibin) and LSD are better candidate as they have an anti addiction feedback loop builtin: if you take 120ug of lsd on Monday, 250ug on Tuesday will have a potency similar less then 50ug would have had on monday. Wait until Friday and 120ug will give you a decent trip again. With magic mushroom it is the same but the delay is longer. Note that there is cross tolerance between psylocibin and LSD as they are both serotonergic hallucinogens.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:44AM (2 children)
Chocolate is actually physically addicting, its active chemical is similar to caffeine. Chocolate has been bred for weakness ever since the Catholics got control of the chocolate producing regions and what you call chocolate may have very little actual cocoa in it so it is not very addicting but the potential is as bad as coffee as being an addicting gateway drug. (Every drug user I've asked started with coffee or other caffeine containing beverage).
Interestingly, back around the end of the 19th century when prohibition became popular, there was a movement to include chocolate in the list of bad substances that need to be prohibited.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 20 2017, @03:02PM (1 child)
Not sure if sarcasm, but I have personally never found caffeine to be addictive at all.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:26AM
Most people do experience mild withdrawal symptoms when used to drinking 2 or more cups a day. http://www.webmd.com/balance/caffeine-myths-and-facts#1-2 [webmd.com]
Not trying to be sarcastic, just showing the stupidity of comparing marijuana, which is considered non-lethal and non-physical addicting to (mildly) addicting, potentially lethal drugs such as coffee and chocolate (btw, chocolate does also contain caffeine as well as theobromine). A tablespoon of pure caffeine can kill and a gram to 1.5 grams a day can have negative affects. Chocolate kills a lot of animals as many such as dog and cats can't metabolize theobromine, even known to kill bears. In its pure form, it is not harmless. Be interesting to get hold of the stuff that the Incas etc used, it sure freaked out the Catholics back in the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_chocolate [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Overdose [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 17 2017, @07:34PM (2 children)
Sorry, but you are perpetuating a myth. Weed is not addictive at all, beyond the possibility of psychological addiction. So if weed addition is an actual thing, so is sex addiction, chocolate addiction, and addiction to soap operas. Dunno about you, but I'm pretty "addicted" to sex and chocolate. Not so much soap operas.
Addiction without any special context means BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL addiction. Weed is simply not chemically addictive like opiates or cigarettes. That's a myth you should stop spreading around.
I smoke a weed a lot, for medical reasons having to do with pain that doesn't respond to opiates. Opiates have a very bad reaction with me anyways. I'm not addicted at all, beyond the psychological addiction of not wanting pain. To put it simply, you're not addicted to something like an addict is addicted to heroin, until you're sucking cock in a bathroom to get it. I've never heard of a pot smoker telling me, "Man, nobody was holding so I had to blow this shady looking dude in an alley to get a joint". I sure as shit don't need weed that badly. I'll take the all the pain first. Plus death. So I sincerely doubt I'm addicted in the classic clinical sense.
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with it. That goes away after stopping for a week or two. Operative word there is stop. There are way too many pot smokers able to stop for extended periods of time, without withdrawal symptoms for weed addiction to be a medically verifiable phenomenon.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:20PM
Yep. Here too.
I'm getting on in years and have my own set of medical issues. Heart, arthritis, and have found cannabis a life saver. Alcohol is poison to me and has destroyed most my heart's nerve bundles. Got a pacemaker ICD now.
Cannabis has also been helpful in weight loss and even getting my blood pressure down.
Unfortunate our leaders are ignorant neanderthals making up lies and tall tales to keep something so good and beneficial out of the hands of people that would benefit from it, all for crony capitolism and corruption in the highest levels of our government. Even more unfortunate that glue sniffers like that idiot above citing lies told by the fucking criminals in our government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:18PM
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with [weed]
I really enjoy the story about NYT's ridiculous redhead who went to Colorado, bought a candy bar, ate the whole thing (when the dose was 1 square), and completely freaked out. Maureen Dowd [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @09:04PM (2 children)
>Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else?
No, they're saying that legal marijuana one of the first truly effective thing we've found to fight the epidemic opioid addiction.
Presumably, because pretty much every addict knows that opioid addiction is really screwing up their life, and that marijuana is much, much safer. I've met a few people that have used marijuana to kick an opioid addiction - marijuana helps with the nausea of withdrawal, stimulates appetite (which can fade under opioid use), and promotes a sense of well-being. Nothing like the intensity of an opioid high, which stimulates the brain's endorphin "pleasure" receptors, but stimulating the brain's canabanoids receptors generally induces a feeling that everything is all right - you may be in constant pain and your life is a mess, but everything is still basically okay.
And marijuana leaves you functional - critical thinking skills usually suffer while you're high, but intuitive reasoning may actually be enhanced, and you're not in some opioid induce quasi-dreamstate, so are quite capable of cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and taking care of all the chores necessary to keeping your life in order. An awful lot of people even go to work high - a good attitude and near-total immunity to boredom and bullshit can actually be a much larger advantage in a whole lot of jobs than the enhanced critical thinking skills you've traded for them. And unlike alcohol, marijuana has negligible effect on reflexes or reckless behavior - in fact there's even some evidence that people tend to become more cautious when high than when sober.
And yeah, you can get addicted to marijuana, in the same way you can get addicted to shopping or chocolate. There's no physical addiction or withdrawal, just an unhealthy psychological obsession. And frankly, replacing an opioid addiction is a marijuana addiction is a *huge* step up. Heck, it'd be a huge step up from an alcohol addiction. We all have our little addictions (Caffeine? Internet?), they're only a problem if they interfere with our ability to function well in society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
Hmmm, getting an idea here. Do you really think that I could use pot to break my internet addiction? As it is, I work from home on the screen and also spend much of my "down time" on the screen reading (and SN commenting). I do get out for bicycle rides when the weather is reasonable (spring & fall). Medical pot has just started being legal here, but I'm guessing that a 'script for it would be hard to get with these symptoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:44AM
From what I've seen it tends to make everything more interesting, internet included, so probably not...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:22AM
So loorg. I'm curious. Genuinely curious.
Now that all these people have responded to your post with factual information to improve your understanding of the topic, do you see things any differently?
Did facts change your mind? Or are you now even more convinced that cannabis is a serious menace?