States Allowing Medical Marijuana Have Fewer Painkiller Deaths

An anonymous reader writes: Narcotic painkillers aren't one of the biggest killers in the U.S., but overdoses do claim over 15,000 lives per year and send hundreds of thousands to the emergency room. Because of this, it's interesting that a new study (abstract) has found states that allow the use of medical marijuana have seen a dramatic reduction in opioid overdose fatalities. "Previous studies hint at why marijuana use might help reduce reliance on opioid painkillers. Many drugs with abuse potential such as nicotine and opiates, as well as marijuana, pump up the brain's dopamine levels, which can induce feelings of euphoria. The biological reasons that people might use marijuana instead of opioids aren't exactly clear, because marijuana doesn't replace the pain relief of opiates. However, it does seem to distract from the pain by making it less bothersome." This research comes at a time when the country is furiously debating the costs and benefits of marijuana use, and opponents of the idea are paying researchers to paint it in an unfavorable light.

Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the War on Drugs was a complete waste of time and money and ruined millions of peoples' lives for no reason, while funneling billions of dollars a year to ruthless criminal warlords in South America?

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[dpilot]

We will not solve the problem with illegal immigration until we figure out how to do something sane instead of the War on Drugs. Right now the unintended consequence of the War on Drugs is that south of the border, drug lords are about as well (if not better?) funded as the governments, destroying the local economies. Some of the people seeking jobs in those economies end up coming to the US in search of work.

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[schlachter]

while funneling billions of dollars a year to ruthless criminal warlords in South America?

...and biotech firms

ruthless criminal

[whathappenedtomonday]

warlords in South America? Don't forget the pharmaceutical industry, and all those other industries that benefit from prohibiting a natural competitor [wikipedia.org] that needs little cultivation because it basically grows like ... well, weed.

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[s.petry]

I won't argue that the war on drugs is a huge failure, but that's a different argument in my opinion. The primary argument here is whether or not marijuana legalization has reduced deaths from prescriptions.

Given legalization is extremely new, the conclusion of the article and study is grossly premature. Making matters worse in my opinion, is that the study only looks at a single element of drugs, and not the complete impact.

As with my opening paragraph, I'm not pro drug war or anti marijuana. I simply t

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[The Good Reverend]

Given legalization is extremely new, the conclusion of the article and study is grossly premature. Making matters worse in my opinion, is that the study only looks at a single element of drugs, and not the complete impact.

California legalized marijuana 18 years ago, in 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]

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[s.petry]

Yeah, and the ATF and DEA were still raiding shops as recently as 2 years ago in spite of California's laws legalizing marijuana. Normalization is not recent.

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[sjames]

The DEA's criminal actions would, if anything, weaken the apparent results. The evidence really DOES strongly point to a reduction in prescription deaths where medical marijuana is legal.

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[rtb61]

And for all those who die in the interim, 'MEH' something in the hundreds of thousands globally and the tens of millions who continue to suffer in pain but think about the pharmaceutical companies profits, the billions lost (or more accurately left in people's pockets rather than being extorted out to pay for patented pain relief), apparently your thought for them is, 'fuck you there is money to be made' at least three years worth and that's without the lobbyists and a religion based ban, 'WOOHOO" billions

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[s.petry]

I didn't say it was bad to have some statistics, I said it was bad to have this study focus on one statistic. You know as well as I do that if the numbers are off, people against legalization will jump all over the study just to wreak havoc on the legalization. Illegal marijuana was (and in many places still is) a huge revenue source for both the criminal side and the law enforcement side (and yes, we would probably agree that the line between those two elements is crossed very often).

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[Sarius64]

There are stories on both sides of the aisle. My grandfather was dying of fatal painful colon cancer when the doctor refused to give him any more morphine because the federal regulations indicted he would be considered an addict at that point of consumption. I doubt marijuana would have helped him there but I empathize with people in those positions.

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[Sarius64]

Agreed. I think a "War on Drug Users" and a "War that Enables Free Confiscation of US Citizens' Property" are more appropriate labels. If it were a war on drugs we would take strike teams to the cartel members (Mexican government?) and remove the source. The US populace wouldn't have known about the largest meth lab in the world sitting 100 miles south of San Diego for two decades. Sigh.

Google: largest meth lab mexico [google.com]

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[Yakasha]

You mean the War on Drugs was a complete waste of time and money and ruined millions of peoples' lives for no reason, while funneling billions of dollars a year to ruthless criminal warlords in Washington D.C.?

tiftfy.

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[penguinoid]

You mean the War on Drugs was a complete waste of time and money and ruined millions of peoples' lives for no reason, while funneling billions of dollars a year to ruthless criminal warlords in South America?

No, it was complete waste of time and money and ruined millions of peoples' lives for the purpose or reducing freedom and privacy, while funneling billions of dollars a year to black ops funding, police department funding, and ruthless criminals everywhere.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The War on Drugs was targeted towards societal changes as a way to cut them off by giving a legal means to attack their perceived underpinnings

Marijuana and hallucinogens were seen as being a part (if not the cause) of the societal changes in the 50's and 60's and the laws that set both of those classes of drugs as the most dangerous and addictive were based on the expectations of the conservative norms of the day.

Like so many things it takes decades to reverse the regressive mistakes of panic-driven politi

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[flyingsquid]

The War on Drugs has been a failure- it's put millions of people in prison, cost our society billions of dollars, and fueled honest-to-God warfare in South America and Mexico- and Americans are slowly starting to realize this. That being said, I think we're running the risk of having things swing too far in the other direction. There seems to be this attitude out there that pot is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up. I know people from high school who used to smoke once in a while, and they're fine- productive members of society, good spouses, good parents, etc. I also know people who went on to smoke weed daily for many years... and they're just not all there anymore. They're always in a pretty good mood, but it seems disconnected from what's going around. They're hard to connect to, they can't seem to empathize with other human beings, they seem scattered and their thought processes tend to run wild; there's a lot of creativity but they lack the focus to do anything with it. The PSAs were right: drugs DO fry your brain.

I think alcohol and Prohibition are a good parallel here. Prohibition was clearly a disaster, and when used in moderation, alcohol is harmless and probably even beneficial. But long-term, daily use of alcohol in high volumes can really screw you up. All things in moderation. Just because you can't OD on pot doesn't mean it's safe to take as much as you want as long as you want.

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[Anonymous Coward]

yes, thank you for demonstrating the step the prohibitionists are taking as a fall-back position to the whole 'that ain't the same pot you smoked back in the day', and 'pot causes mental illness' from their all-or nothing smoke pot and your a dangerous criminal stance

admittedly it is an improvement, but it is disingenuous in that it is just an attempt to maintain a source of cash flow through fear

while I agree that many of the rules regarding alcohol use should apply to marijuana (regulation, taxation, limi

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[LoRdTAW]

" There seems to be this attitude out there that pot is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up."

Replace pot with Alcohol, cigarettes, HFC's, video games, etc. and its pretty much the same thing. How far can it swing in the other direction? You mentioned alcohol has bad long term effects. But despite this people still drink themselves to death, drive drunk and kill others or get killed, or become a raging ass holes causing mayhem. People still smoke cigarettes despite the exorbitant cost and adverse health effects including cancer. People still drink gallons of soda and sugar crap until their pancreas packs it in and shuts down. People play video games until they loose their jobs, wives, kids and home or in some cases, until they drop dead. There is nothing the government can do at that point other than prohibit it these things and we all know how that works out. It's either all with some restrictions (don't drive and you must be 18 years old).

The people have to be the ones to use judgement. If someone smokes so much weed and they fry their brains then that is their fault. Just like the old 65yo blue collar retiree who spends every night at the bar downing 6+ pints until his liver fails (know a guy who this just happened to. sad). People have to be educated and they have to be smart.

Oh and I can counter your burn out pot head story with an anecdote of my own: I have a friend who at one point worked two jobs and got a degree at the same time. I asked him how he did it his answer was "Copious amounts of marijuana bro." He smokes in the morning, on his way to work while at work and at home. He is very energetic, driven and lively. Quite the opposite of your theory. So it of course depends on the person.

I have also known people who smoked a lot and were fucked up because they were fucked up to begin with. You just always assumed they were messed up because of the pot but meanwhile you never really knew them well enough and they were messed up in the head to begin with. I worked with a kid who would go berserk is he didn't smoke and he smoked all the time. If he drank he was VIOLENT. A night out with him meant he was going to get into a fight and usually win because he was a hulk of a man. Turns out his father was exposed to chemical warfare agents while in nam and had a lot of mental issues including PTSD. His father ambushed him and his mother with a knife thinking they were Vietcong which promptly ended that marriage. He also had a very dysfunctional life and had a lot of really fucked up friends (I mean what friend tells you to fuck their own mother because she thinks your cute and lets you actually follow through? Yea, those were his friends. They gave me the heebie jeebies). The smoking was probably medicating him.

In the end legalizing it will create new problems but they will be far more petty than what we have today. We can rid ourselves of a large amount of violent crime, people in jail and money spent on ruining lives while fattening the wallets of war machine peddlers. I'd rather live in a world full of cheery burnouts than drug gangs chopping peoples heads off with box cutters and chain saws, prisons bursting at the seams with inmates who just become more angry and make plenty of angry new friends they can do business with once they get out and government paramilitary goons wielding surplus military hardware shooting first and asking questions later (oops! no drugs here. Sorry for shooting your dog and father, kids. Have a nice life!). Legalize it, please.

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[Zero__Kelvin]

"There seems to be this attitude out there that pot is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up."

There seems to be this attitude out there that oxygen is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up."

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[drinkypoo]

The War on Drugs has been a failure- it's put millions of people in prison, cost our society billions of dollars, and fueled honest-to-God warfare in South America and Mexico-

The War on Drugs has been a complete success. It's put millions of people in prison (At significant profit to certain sectores), funneled millions of dollars to contractors at a cost to society of billions of dollars (to say nothing of the lost lives) and fueled honest-to-God warfare in South and Central America, ensuring a steady supply of cheap labor and a fairly effective barrier which deters most Norteamericanos from migrating South to more friendly environments like Panama or Costa Rica by car, van, bus, or box truck.

I think alcohol and Prohibition are a good parallel here.

Sigh. If you really understood the situation as well as you think you do, you'd know that the people behind the "War on Drugs" were completely aware of the results of prohibition; it doesn't matter if it's of alcohol or marijuana. They knew that it increased demand and literally created a profitable criminal class.

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[greg1104]

If you take someone who's inclined to take drugs heavily for an extended period, it's kind of naive to think they wouldn't have done that simply if their drug of choice today is taken away. The people you know who are fried from smoking could just have easily been messed up painkillers and anti-depressants if weed wasn't there for them.

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[wwphx]

Hawaii is a classic case. They took away pot, and crack and meth entered the vacuum. Violent crime skyrocketed.

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[Zero__Kelvin]

"The War on Drugs has been a a smashing success - it's put millions of people whom the power structure wanted to imprison in prison, diverted billions of dollars to those in the power structure, and helped subsidize honest-to-God warfare in South America and Mexico- and still, too small of a subset of Americans realize this."

Just a little accuracy upgrade to your well thought out post.

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[sjames]

So, were the second group perfectly psychologically healthy before they started smoking so much? Perhaps they were the few who were on the road to going postal one day but by the grace of THC they are able to at least live peaceful lives?

I have no doubt that chronic heavy use is bad for you. I suspect but cannot prove that at least some of the people who fall into that pattern had an underlying problem in the first place that they are self-medicating with varying success.

It wouldn't be too surprising if lik

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[TarPitt]

Like Prohibition - which was not so much anti-alcohol, as a white rural reaction against the growing dominance of urban areas and their populations of (beer drinking) immigrants. It was an early form of our culture wars, with the drugs acting as a proxy for reaction against deeper social changes.

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[mspohr]

The war on drugs is a war on black people. It's a convenient way to lock them up. White people use (abuse) drugs at a higher rate than black people but get busted at a much lower rate.

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[anagama]

Why is the parent post moderated flamebait?

The comment is statistically accurate if a bit understated. Lots of charts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

There are countless articles anyone on /. should be competent to find on their own, such as this:

The punishment falls disproportionately on people of color. Blacks make up 50 percent of the state and local prisoners incarcerated for drug crimes. Black kids are 10 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes than white ones -- even though white kids are more likely to abuse drugs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]

As for the "war on black people" comment, see the book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]

Once a person is convicted of a felony, like for having an ounce of pot or whatever, huge swaths of civil and privacy rights are just taken away for life, finding employment becomes very hard, and they end up never being financially capable of escaping the ghetto. This is just as effective as "whites only" laws.

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[milkmage]

no, but the prisons are full of people who are in for simple possession.

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[Zero__Kelvin]

"I doubt the war on drugs was only targeted towards Marijuana."

Since people aren't Marijuana you would be right. The War on Drugs is a misnomer. It has always been a losing war [youtube.com] against the US Citizens, and more specifically a subset of the US citezenry that valued morals and freedom of choice over laws designed to create a ruling class and a subjegated class. This is not to say that there are no immoral drug users of course, but the all too often successful attempt to paint drug use as immoral was never

Re: Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[macs4all]

"After alcohol, THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana, is the substance most commonly found in the blood of impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers, and motor vehicle crash victims. Studies in several localities have found that approximately 4 to 14 percent of drivers who sustained injury or died in traffic accidents tested positive for THC."

I call Shennanigans.

1. Tests for THC Metabolites (which are ALL that the drug tests measure (rather than the incorrectly-stated delta-9 THC), have ZERO ability to determine whether a person was "high" at the time of the accident). That is because those Metabolites (but NOT the effects of the drug) stay in a typical human's bloodstream for weeks after the last "dose"; so, a statement regarding their presence in traffic accident "participants" has as much to do with establishing a causal relationship as mentioning their shoe size as a contributing factor.

2. The anti-marijuana bias of that "study", and that of the person who propounds it, is transparently p, and laughably, evident by including "motor vehicle crash victims" (other than drivers). So what now? We have a new classification of negligence called "RIDING while high"??? Yeah, those people SURELY should be included in a study if impaired DRIVING...

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[Sarius64]

Yes, no bias in your reaction, though.

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[hrvatska]

THC being present in a person's system is a poor indicator that they were high on THC at the time of an accident. THC can show up in drug tests for weeks after person last consumed it and the mental effects have long since dissipated. How many of those people with THC in their systems involved in accidents also had elevated levels of alcohol or other drugs in their systems? Rather than use a very inaccurate measure like the mere presence of THC in the blood, why not look at vehicular fatality rates in sta

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[Sarius64]

Actually, you've framed a great representation of the problem between intoxicants. Alcohol, being the most dangerous of those ready intoxicants, has the property of having a somewhat tested method of measuring whether your system is effected. THC flushing varies between persons drastically and I've seen evidence that it remains at wildly different rates depending on your physical makeup. I wish there were better studies available on THC (and its effects) flushing. If anyone has access to one here please

Re:Congressional Pharmaceutical Complex

[hrvatska]

Both outcomes are very germane to the debate of whether or not to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Good statistics should be used to guide policy. When you say "both outcomes you've described mean nothing to dead people", that comes off to me in the same way as "think of the children" does. Law enforcement has various means to test impairment that may not be as definitive as a breathalyzer (whose accuracy is considered debatable by some), but are still good enough to determine if a person is fit to drive. Instead of banning marijuana, how about if we instead develop more effective means of determining if a person is fit to drive? It shouldn't matter whether a person is unfit to drive because of alcohol, pot, old age or blood pressure medication, they're still unfit to drive.

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[Sarius64]

I agree with your conclusion. However, only two of my eight family members killed by drunk drivers were minors, so think of the one-quarter children.

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[Sarius64]

Because obviously we're all here for you, mate.

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[ultranova]

Alcohol, being the most dangerous of those ready intoxicants, has the property of having a somewhat tested method of measuring whether your system is effected.

Not really. While acute alcohol intoxication is easy to test, the lingering effects are not. Hangover persists even after all ethanol has been burned up, as do the effects of lack of (restful) sleep, not to mention possible withdrawal effects. And of course depression and outright illness which result from heavy use don't exactly make you a safer dri

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[sjames]

Given NHTSA's sloppy reasoning and screwy statistics WRT alcohol, they aren't a particularly good source of information.

An elderly man (a teetotaler) has a heart attack while driving and collides with a restaurant that serves alcohol. Fortunately, it is closed at the time so the only fatality is the driver. According to NHTSA's definitions, it is an alcohol related traffic fatality.

All of the stats you cite are such that no reasonable conclusion can be drawn. For example,

4 to 14 percent of drivers who sustained injury or died in traffic accidents tested positive for THC.

First, that's a pretty wide swing,

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[sjames]

Oh sorry, I thought keeping society safe isn't part of your agenda. Got it.

Fortunately, it is part of my agenda AND I recognize that proper statistical analysis can point the way while junk statistics are better suited to hidden agendas.

Up is down and hot is cold...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that seems to be US drug policy
A common painkiller will kill you and a schedule 1 dangerous drug has medical benefits and cannot kill you regardless of dosage

As far as the legal painkiller goes, Acetaminophen can destroy your liver and most NSAIDs increase your risk of stroke

Opioids are the biggest culprit tho, what with their tendency to suppress breathing and cause death with relatively small doses. Add in the tendency to cause physical addiction and long term illegal use of stolen pharmaceuticals or heroin

Are we living in crazy town, or is the will of the people finally being heard?

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[fermion]

Prescription drugs are killing people and have been the gateway drug ever since I can remember. The overuse of perscription drugs lull people into a belief they never have to feel anything, and when they cannot afford the commercial stuff, they get stuff on the street. Common sense laws that could control the way that prescriptions drugs lead to drug abuse have been fought tooth and nail by the the Pharmcos. In places like Vermont, where easy access to drug and guns intersect, the prescription drug abuse

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[budgenator]

Making plants illegal is just silly.

About a silly as a public Elementary School in a declared "Drug Free Zone" growing Poppies in their landscape.

"Drug Free Zone"

[jopsen]

...public Elementary School in a declared "Drug Free Zone"...

Of-topic, I've never understood that declaration... it seems to imply that drugs are allowed everywhere else. Which by my understanding isn't the case.
Oh, well... Americans :)

Re:Up is down and hot is cold...

[Skynyrd]

Are we living in crazy town, or is the will of the people finally being heard?

We are living in crazy town.
Our representatives don't represent us any more; they obey the special interest dollar.

I don't see a positive future for the US. Either the middle class will continue to get fucked until everybody is at the poverty level (except the uber-wealthy) or there will be a civil war. Neither one will end well. We will continue to be distracted with issues like gay marriage, legal weed, NASCAR and celebrity dating (even though two of those actually matter) until one or the other happens. I am glad I have about 40 years of life left, and didn't bring kids into the world.

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[ultranova]

I don't see a positive future for the US. Either the middle class will continue to get fucked until everybody is at the poverty level (except the uber-wealthy) or there will be a civil war.

Relax, the way things are going we seem headed for World War III long before that.

Wouldn't edibles have the same effect

[SuperKendall]

If pot becomes legal in all states, I hope there are warnings on the marijana cigarettes like there are on tobacco cigarettes.

Is that as likely to cause cancer? It does seem like smoking anything is a bad idea, but perhaps tobacco has something that makes it more likely to develop issues...

However there's also another way to get MJ into your system, edibles. If you were using it for medical purposes a medicinal brownie seems like a more appealing application than does smoking...

Preferential extraction of heavy metals

[apraetor]

Tobacco plants pull some very nasty minerals out of soil, such as Strontium-90 and Cadmium. There have been studies done to see whether that effect can be exploited as a means of remediation for contaminated soil. Regardless of those results, the plants themselves are high in heavy metals; the kind of stuff that is no good in your lungs.

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[drinkypoo]

Tobacco plants pull some very nasty minerals out of soil, such as Strontium-90 and Cadmium. There have been studies done to see whether that effect can be exploited as a means of remediation for contaminated soil.

Here are your search terms: "Oyster Mushrooms" "Fungi Perfecti" "Paul Stamets"

Long story short, not only can you remediate soil by growing common fungi but you can also reduce uptake of radioactives by plants via fungal soil inoculation.

Re:Wouldn't edibles have the same effect

[sumdumass]

Smoking pot destroys quite a bit of the supposed good stuff in it. Its really a poor delivery system outside of getting high.

As far as causing cancer, it is a surprisingly low number of smokers who get cancer from smoking. I know it is presented as if you even look at a cigarette, you will get cancer and die, but less than 10% of life long smokers will get cancer. But of people who have cancer, something like 87% of the lung cancer deaths are from smoking and about 30% of all cancer deaths are from smoking. Further, smoking increases your risks of cancer about 23 times that of non smokers so there is a strong tie in with cancer. This is how the tobacco companies were able to refute connections to smoking and cancer for so long and probably why they weren't just shut down completely after losing court battle after court battle.

Now when comparing smoking pot with tobacco, you have to understand that the combustion process changes a lot of the chemicals within the substances, creates new ones by reactions, and it is thought that these changes may modify your risks of cancers and other diseases. Similarly, fire fighters seem to have higher risks of cancers and it is thought because of exposure to smoke and supposedly safe chemicals for fire retardants when burned.

I just wouldn't trust anyone who says it is safe to smoke pot. Maybe it might be less dangerous, but that would mean it would still be dangerous.

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[TubeSteak]

This is how the tobacco companies were able to refute connections to smoking and cancer for so long and probably why they weren't just shut down completely after losing court battle after court battle.

No. Just no.
The tobacco companies kept the law off them by running a FUD campaign of epic proportions.

They created and paid for think tanks to do research and write papers that refuted scientific fact.
They had an impressive lobbying organization that aggressively lobbied in Washington.
Books have been written about it based on everything that came out in court.

Once the Master Settlement Agreement was made, the tobacco lobbying and FUD money dried up.
The portions of the tobacco FUD machine that weren't dissol

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[Yakasha]

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who they're shilling for now.

Considering the revolving door in D.C. + marijuana STILL being schedule I... I'm going to guess... The Feds.

Am I right?

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[Lehk228]

IIRC "clean coal" was one of their highly polished turds

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[TarPitt]

this search might come up with some excellent examples: http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=global+warming [slashdot.org]

For a more detailed look at this, try [slashdot.org] http://slashdot.org/story/06/0... [slashdot.org]

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[Sarius64]

citation?

Re:Wouldn't edibles have the same effect

[sound+vision]

I'm in the US and have been a daily potsmoker for the last 8 years (barring a few months break). I have never seen tobacco mixed into a joint, not once... it seems to be a European thing. Now, there is the practice of using cigar wraps to roll a "blunt", and sometimes those cigar wraps are made from tobacco pulp, so that could be seen as mixing tobacco with marijuana. I prefer not to smoke blunts, either.

Scraping the crystals (technically trichromes) off cannabis is how hashish is made. Dissolving it into a solvent, then evaporating the solvent, gives liquid hash oil (also called honey oil, dabs, wax). Dabs are becoming more prevalent within the past few years as they are theoretically healthier, having a better ratio of plant material to THC. A recent issue of High Times featured a method of extracting hash oil using drinking-grade ethanol, instead of butane which was the formerly used process. Not only is it less likely to explode, it also placates people who are arbitrarily afraid of "chemicals", so I see dabs gaining massive popularity within the next few years.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Sarius64]

Peer reviewed, I assume?

Fitzgerald, K. T., Bronstein, A. C., & Newquist, K. L. (2013). Marijuana poisoning. Topics in Companion Animal Medicine, 28(1), 8-12. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.tcam.2013.03.004

Van Hoozen, B.,E., & Cross, C. E. (1997). Marijuana. Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology, 15(3), 243-269. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02737700

Kozer, E. (2001-02-01). Effects of prenatal exposure to marijuana. Canadian family physician, 47, 263-264.

Coffman, K. L. (2008). The debate a

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[ColdWetDog]

Drugged up is drugged up.

LONG-term effects of marijuana

Reduced resistance to common illnesses (colds, bronchitis, etc.)

Suppression of the immune system

Growth disorders

Increase of abnormally structured cells in the body

Reduction of male sex hormones

Rapid destruction of lung fibers and lesions (injuries) to the brain could be permanent

Reduced sexual capacity

Study difficulties: reduced ability to learn and retain information

Apathy, drowsiness, lack of motivation

Personality and mood changes

Inability to understand things clearly

I thought these were all side effects from reading Slashdot.

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[Lehk228]

A+ on your DARE report bro.

Great - but how many choking deaths?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many choking deaths from people getting the munchies?

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[PPH]

You can't really dust for vomit.

Painkillers, HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

First mistake, opoids are not painkillers, they're brain killers. They do not affect the pain, they merely mess you up so bad you no longer care if anything hurts.
I'm in constant pain, 24/7, and tried the opoid "painkillers". They also killed my life, I was so brain dead I could accomplish only the bare minimum hygienic tasks.
I got off the opoids (a significant achievement) and started smoking pot to deal with the pain. Sure, it hurts more now, but the pot allows me to deal with it.

And since I live in a State that has not even legalized medical pot due to all the damn liars about the so called "dangers" I'm an Anonymous Coward.
 

Re:Painkillers, HA!

[apraetor]

Opiates and opioids work on several subtypes of opioid receptors, which are present in locations besides the brain. The mu-opioid receptions in the brain are responsible for the sense of euphoria the drugs produce, but those receptors, along with kappa- and delta- variants, modulate nociception (pain sense). If opioids didn't actually work directly on pain then intrathecal morphine wouldn't work as well as it does.

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[Rinikusu]

Anecdotally, when I was on Morphine, the pain was still there. It was buried in my brain, but if I looked for it, I found it. Morphine merely allowed me to shunt it off somewhere else. Same with whatever pain meds they gave me post-surgery. I didn't even know I was on pain meds until they started to wear off (about every 12 hours, on the dot). I knew I still had pain deep down, but I just didn't care about it. However, after about 12 hours, I couldnt' ignore it and had to retake.

Now, I'm in constant p

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[WilyCoder]

"a car on a bicycle"

that must have been a big bike to support a car!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

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Re:

[drinkypoo]

the THC content of todays marijuana are much stronger than they were back in the 1960's.

We keep hearing this, but there's no evidence to support it. Maybe it's better than you could get in the 1960s, but humans have been cultivating this plant specifically for high THC production for literally thousands of years.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The pain is still there.

[nospam007]

We just don't give a shit.

But lower pharma profits...

[bazmail]

Its business and lobbying. As soon as the meidical marijuana industry puts money into lobbying things will get a lot better for patients.

I disagree

[msobkow]

...marijuana doesn't replace the pain relief of opiates.

No, for many people it's more effective than opiates. I know literally dozens of medical cannabis users who have given up opiate pain killers completely and replaced them with medical cannabis. But it's important to experiment with different strains and find what works for you; all cannabis is not created equal.

Personally, I use Kush and Afghanistan strains and crosses for migraines. Over the years I've tried literally hundreds of strains, and looked into their breeding history, and came to the conclusion that it was Kush and Afghanistan strains that are the most effective for my migraines.

Where an opiate pain killer will dull the pain of a migraine, the proper strain will completely eliminate all migraine symptoms for me within 5-10 minutes of consuming a half gram dose. Triptans, on the other hand, only work half the time and take half an hour to have any effect, if any. Opiates only dull pain and actually make the nausea of a migraine worse because they upset my stomach. Add in the addictive nature of opiates, and I think you can understand why I'd much rather use medical cannabis than prescription opiates for what ails me.

Re:

[budgenator]

I was a burn patient and was prescribed enough morphine to depress my breathing, but that didn't touch my headache. The Nurses looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for tylenol for my headache, but it clobbered the headache.

Re:

[apraetor]

I didn't have extensive burns, just the back of my left hand and wrist, from boiling oil, but I noticed the same thing. Oxycodone (the Percocet variety) did a great job of letting me ignore my hand -- when it wasn't itching like crazy -- but it didn't work for my headaches either. Marijuana definitely worked for both, although I think the effect is something to do with dissociation, at least for me. Instead of the pain being an all-consuming sensation it becomes.. well I'm not sure of the words. After marij

Re:

[budgenator]

Mine was from burning rosin on the back of my right hand, they kept asking me about the pain which was well controlled but my take everything too literal mind never thought to complain about the itching. I was being seen in a teaching Hospital, Detroit Recieving, a MD from another Hospital casualy said "Oh by the way you do know that benedryl stops the itching, don't you?" after 6 weeks the itchy gritty torment was gone with 1 benedryl!

Re:

[msobkow]

Oh yes, being in pain, throwing up, and not being able to see due to auras is just a "little headache."

So you can kiss my haemorrhoidic ass.

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

I literally read your anicdotal comments literally once, and must say I literally agree with your experiences. Literally.

Re:

[msobkow]

Oh my fucking God! Shoot him! He made a fucking TYPO!

Asshat.

Re:

[msobkow]

You're correct. It's not a typo. (I thought maybe it was supposed to be spelled with one "l".)

It is the correct use of the term to emphasize the "dozens" in my statement:

Merriam-Webster definition [merriam-webster.com]

Re:

[msobkow]

But I'm not surprised that people from the land of Ebonics would take issue with the correct use of the English language. :P

Shit. It's an adverb

[msobkow]

I hate being proven wrong.

The correct phrasing would have been "I literally know dozens", because "know" is the modified verb and "dozens" is not a verb.

Curse you both for being right! :D

Incorrect headline, summary

[wmansir]

This study has been misreported nearly everywhere. The study didn't find states with legalized medical marijuana had fewer deaths than non-legal states. Legalized states continually had more deaths per capita, and both groups had dramatic increased in opiate OD deaths over the period covered by the study. The researchers found OD death rates in legalized states increased ~25% less than expected.

I don't have access to the full study, but this chart included in this Washington Post article [washingtonpost.com] shows both groups OD death rate increase dramatically over time. It's interesting to note the change from 2009-2010, which significantly narrowed the gap between the groups. Prior to that year both groups seemed to be on similar trend lines. That said, groups moved from the illegal to legalized group over the course of the study and I'm not sure if or how the chart was adjusted for those changes.

No

[kipling]

I don't think so. The JAMA article http://archinte.jamanetwork.co... [jamanetwork.com] does look at longitudinal effects but the 25% figure comes from comparing states with and without. From the abstract:
States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate (95% CI, 37.5% to 9.5%; P=.003) compared with states without medical cannabis laws.
The common way to statistically analyse the effect of one variable is to model as many variables as the data allows and run a regression to isolate the effect of the target variable.
It may be that there are other problems with the study (e.g. correlations between the variables assumed to be independent) but this isn't one of them.

Re:

[tomhath]

There wasn't a 25% difference in death rates. There was a 25% difference in the increase of the death rate due to drug overdose. It's also not clear if the deaths caused by opiate overdose were replaced by something else (suicide is pretty common among people in the final stages of a terribly painful disease like cancer).

Reason for replacing opiates - functionality

[reve_etrange]

I think a lot of people replace opiates with marijuana despite inferior pain relief because it's a helluva lot easier to function in a more-or-less normal way on pot than, say, percocet or whatever.

Re:

[PPH]

function in a more-or-less normal way

Maybe, maybe not. But it is accepted that opiates are more lethal than marijuana. And if some peopleare satisfied with the replacement, that's a step in the right direction from the point of view of death rates.

It appears that the biggest anti-marijuana movement is made up of the drug companies that stand to loose opiate sales to m.j.

For those that don't smoke...

[Charliemopps]

For those that don't smoke...

It relieves pain not because it reduces the pain... but because it allows you to more easily focus on something else. If you're watching a movie for example, it's very easy to get lost in the movie and forget entirely about your bad back, or whatever. It's been used in mediation and religious ceremonies for thousands of years for that very reason.

Along those same lines, if you were abusing Oxy, it would likely help you forget you lost your buzz and make it less likely you'd go for your next hit. I'm not sure on that though, I don't do real drugs.

Anti-opiate forces actually "pro pain"?

[swb]

There's times I think that the "anti opiate" forces would be against anything that made pain sufferers feel better. It's like there's some kind of morality subtext that's really "pro pain" and opposed to feeling better (unless of course it was due to praying to Jesus).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's barely scraped the surface of these freaks. Have another bullet point: They're the ones who expect you to die slowly and painfully at the end of your life (God forbid you skip out on it. God forbid you ask them to help pay for all the tubes and shit.) Your pain brings them closer to their god.

News for NERDS.

[kuzb]

Jesus christ slashdot, get your shit together.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

ridiculous comparison

[markdavis]

>"Many drugs with abuse potential such as nicotine and opiates, as well as marijuana, pump up the brain's dopamine levels, which can induce feelings of euphoria."

Exactly how does one "abuse" nicotine? What ridiculous grasping to put nicotine into the same sentence as opiates and marijuana when it comes to getting "high". It is also never used for pain killing. You might as well have included caffeine and sugar in the list. It blows the credibility of the article and makes it seem totally desperate.

Re:

[markdavis]

Nicotine probably causes less harm to the human body than caffeine or sugar. Perhaps you are thinking about something else?

Re:

[MightyMartian]

AIDS is found in Islamic states, and just ask the 1400 girls radioed over 16 years in Rotherham, England by 8000 Pakistani and Kashmiri men how Sharia keeps children safe.

Re:

[ganjadude]

A large portion of the tech community smokes pot, something like this belongs here, not every little story on pot but a story this big for sure

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[dcollins117]

So for a lot of cases it can actually replace opiates, and smoking is a faster way for it to get into your bloodstream than everything except IV injections.

Clearly we need to fast-track the development of IV marijuana. I'll volunteer for any clinical trials.

On a more serious note, I was treated for a while by a rheumatologist that had done a lot of research on pain-killers derived from marijuana. To my knowledge, there aren't any on the market currently, but the research is being done. Finally.

Re:

[dcollins117]

Listen, we all know what the pro-pot movement is about. It's not medical. Medical usage is being used like a crowbar to pry open the gate on the path to legalization, but we all know the real reason people are behind it.

Yes, we all know what's going on. "Medical usage is being used like a crowbar" because that's the only thing that has worked so far. It also has the added benefit of being a factual and legitimate use that people can understand. No one who has experienced pain (everyone has at some point) will question why someone else does not want to be in pain.

I don't happen to have a problem with being a bit disingenuous if that's what it takes. I personally want to see recreational marijuana use legalized in every stat

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Regardless of the reasons one way or the other, nobody has the right to prohibit its possession and use.

Re:

[Sarius64]

Drunk drivers say the same thing up till the point where they murder someone with an automobile. Then they whine that no one understands them.