According to a new federally-funded study, marijuana has a “significantly” reduced effect on opioid cravings in people who use them without prescription. This suggests that increasing access to legal cannabis may provide a safer alternative for more people.
Researchers from the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCS) and UCLA conducted a survey of 205 cannabis and opioid users who did not have a prescription between December 2019 and November 2021. The aim was to test the hypothesis that marijuana is an effective tool for harm reduction in the midst of the current overdose crisis.
In the study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy it was found that 58 per cent of participants said that they used marijuana to reduce their opioid cravings. A multivariable study showed that cannabis consumption was “significantly associated” with self-reported decreases in opioid usage.
Researchers said this is the first study to investigate the “outcomes” of cannabis being used to control opioid cravings among people who use painkillers obtained from an illicit market. This comes with the risk of getting contaminated products.
The study’s authors concluded that “these findings indicate cannabis use for managing opioid cravings is an important motivation for cannabis usage among [people who take unregulated opioids]” and are associated with self-assessed decreases in opioid consumption during cannabis use. “Increasing accessibility of cannabis products to be used therapeutically may be an effective supplementary strategy in order to reduce exposure to unregulated painkillers and the associated harms during the ongoing drug toxic crisis.”
The U.S. National Institutes of Health and Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded the study. One of the seven authors of the study revealed that the cannabis company Canopy Growth has funded him to be a professor at the University of British Columbia.
This is the most recent piece of research from a vast pool of scientific literature that suggests marijuana can be used as a replacement for legal and illegal substances, and prescription drugs.
According to a study published in the last month, medical marijuana users have lower levels of pain and a reduced dependency on opioids as well as other prescription drugs.
A study by the American Medical Association in February showed that patients with chronic pain who used medical marijuana for more than a month experienced a significant decrease in opioid prescriptions.
AMA released research that showed that approximately 1 in 3 chronic pain sufferers report using cannabis for treatment options, and that most of this group have used cannabis to replace other pain medications including opioids.
According to a recent study, state-level marijuana legalization was also associated with a significant reduction in the prescribing opioid codeine.
According to a study released last year, giving patients legal access medical cannabis could help them reduce or stop using opioid painkillers without compromising their quality of life.
There are many anecdotal accounts, studies based on data, and observations which indicate that cannabis is used as an alternative drug to opioid-based drugs and sleep medication.
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Photo by Mike Latimer.
The first Marijuana Moment article to appear was Study shows marijuana is’significantly associated’ with reduced use of unregulated opioids.
