In States With Medical Marijuana, Painkiller Deaths Drop by 25%

[Logical]

America has a major problem with prescription pain medications like Vicodin and OxyContin. Overdose deaths from these pharmaceutical opioids have approximately tripled since 1991, and every day 46 people die of such overdoses in the United States.

However, in the 13 states that passed laws allowing for the use of medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010, 25 percent fewer people die from opioid overdoses annually.

“The difference is quite striking,” said study co-author Colleen Barry, a health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. The shift showed up quite quickly and become visible the year after medical marijuana was accepted in each state, she told Newsweek.

In the study, published today August 25 in JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers hypothesize that in states where medical marijuana can be prescribed, patients may use pot to treat pain, either instead of prescription opiates, or to supplement them—and may thus require a lower dosage that is less likely to lead to a fatal problem.

(further down in the article some researchers doubt the study results)

More at: http://www.newsweek.com/states-medical-marijuana-painkiller-deaths-drop-25-266577

How much longer is this using this stuff going to send people to jail? It is getting ridiculous at this point!

[postulater]

1. Could be they just forget to take the oxy.

[Logical]

2. Good one! nt

[Doctor_J]

7. And this blatantly one-sided article omits all of the deaths due to chili-cheese fritos OD's

and those who giggled so hard at Monty Python And The Holy Grail that they suffocated.

[tjl148]

43. +1

Does medical marijuana work on flesh wounds?

[Strelnikov_]

3. "The Real Reason Pot Is Still Illegal"

This article was an eye opener for me.

http://www.thenation.com/article/180493/anti-pot-lobbys-big-bankroll

Given that CADCA is dedicated to protecting society from dangerous drugs, the event that day had a curious sponsor: Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxy-Contin, the highly addictive painkiller that nearly ruined Kennedy’s congressional career and has been linked to thousands of overdose deaths nationwide.

Prescription opioids, a line of pain-relieving medications derived from the opium poppy or produced synthetically, are the most dangerous drugs abused in America, with more than 16,000 deaths annually linked to opioid addiction and overdose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more Americans now die from painkillers than from heroin and cocaine combined. The recent uptick in heroin use around the country has been closely linked to the availability of prescription opioids, which give their users a similar high and can trigger a heroin craving in recovering addicts. (Notably, there are no known deaths related to marijuana, although there have been instances of impaired driving.)

. . .

So it’s more than a little odd that CADCA and the other groups leading the fight against relaxing marijuana laws, including the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids (formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America), derive a significant portion of their budget from opioid manufacturers and other pharmaceutical companies. According to critics, this funding has shaped the organization’s policy goals: CADCA takes a softer approach toward prescription-drug abuse, limiting its advocacy to a call for more educational programs, and has failed to join the efforts to change prescription guidelines in order to curb abuse. In contrast, CADCA and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids have adopted a hard-line approach to marijuana, opposing even limited legalization and supporting increased police powers.

A close look at the broader political coalition lobbying against marijuana-law reform reveals many such conflicts of interest. In fact, the CADCA event was attended by representatives of a familiar confederation of anti-pot interests, many of whom have a financial stake in the status quo, including law enforcement agencies, pharmaceutical firms, and nonprofits funded by federal drug-prevention grants.

[Logical]

6. Thanks for posting this. Amazing. nt

[Tsiyu]

8. Yep

How sick are we as a nation that we allow Big Pimp Daddy Pusher Man Pharmcos to spew out billions of pills that kill people, and they get to MAKE A PROFIT OFF the pills and addiction they cause but cannabis is still illegal?

And then Congress and the administration allow these cretin pushers to lobby to make a plant illegal? How sick and twisted and cruel are we as a nation that we just saw a Minnesota mother sentenced to two years for giving a non-high inducing oil to a child in severe pain?

FUCK this system.

Pharmcos make money off of addiction and death, and yet the poor, the working class and those who don't want to get drunk off their asses or take fucking pills and more pills and more pills are the ones demonized. FUCK that, Holder and Obama. FUCK you for telling me I can get drunk off my ass or take legal prescription pain killers until they kill ME but I can't grow a goddamned medicinal plant? Because DANGER? Because What the FUCK?

FUCK congress, FUCK Michele Lionheart, FUCK the DEA and FUCK the administration for their desire to see people die from pill overdose just so they don't have to grow some SPINAL material and some COURAGE and let cannabis be a legal medicine/recreational substance.

Toke up, Congress. We all know you do. Toke up, DEA members. We all know you do. Toke up, Pharmco lobbyists and Beerco lobbyists. Toke up For-profit prison CEOS. We know you assholes smoke weed, you just don't want anyone else to do so.

Live in your dream state and keep screwing all of us over so you can make bank, Pharmcos. KILL people with your product and then have the unmitigated GALL to go stand in congress and urge the continuation of a war on a PLANT that never killed anyone.

FUCK YOU. ALL of YOU. ( insert bird-flipping smilie here )


Thanks for the rant space, DU...back to work now...

[tridim]

15. Sorry, but LOL at your FUCKING capped words.

Read what you wrote, yelling only the capped words and you'll understand.

[Tsiyu]

17. :)

I DO have a way with the F words

[RagAss]

18. +1000

[Tsiyu]

42. Thanks and

I love your sigline

[rickyhall]

22. Totally spot on!

And I got to bitch about no preventive care in this uncivilized backwater. I have to bury yet another young friend/loved one because of no fucking preventive care. 3 heart attacks & 1 leukemia; 2 under 50 & 2 under 60. All because no one saw it coming. I'm tired of this shit. I finally got ACA subsidized healthcare & find I have high blood pressure. Medical care is given in civilized countries but not this fucking place, profits are too important. And I have to stop the better painkiller/antidepressant so I can get a job at fucking Walmart. What a country!

[Tsiyu]

27. Sorry for your loss

I am afraid to go to the doctor. Haven't been to one - except to a reduced cost clinic once - in twenty years.

No telling what's up, but I just don't even want to know.

I'm just so glad my dad was union so he and my mom have great health care and I don't have to worry about them. I'll probably croak before they do.

Hang in there, rickyhall

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

38. The F-Bomb jar...

... is up to 9. Why not contribute to DU the amount the bartender would be making you drop into the F-Bomb jar? $9

[Tsiyu]

41. well, fuck

guess it's $10 now

My youngest is getting married next month. When that's done, I shall fuck my way, I mean, pay my way to a star ....$11

[tjl148]

44. +1

This is so true. Keep up the rant!

[Tsiyu]

48. Most here would say

you really shouldn't encourage me

Thanks for the vote of confidence though.

[NightWatcher]

4. uh huh. And how much money are they not spending on opiates either?

That's why it's still illegal in half the US.

[Doctor_J]

5. Everyone knows that PHARMA had a big hand in keeping pot illegal

Oxy is a cash cow, and pot will kill the demand

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

39. The beer, booze and wine lobby...

... kicks in their anti-marijuana overdrive whenever marijuana or hemp laws of any kind come up in the halls of Congress and state legislatures. Same difference. If people can relax with a doobie and a glass of lemonade on the patio, they won't buy as much beer/booze/wine.

[jtuck004]

9. **cough** Whu? n/t

[JackInGreen]

31. Don't ask

just pass that.

[The Wizard]

10. Follow the money

Pot requires no processing and costs little to grow and can be grown almost anywhere. It is called weed. Big pharma bribes law makers. Pot growers just grow a weed. There's no kick bak bribery from pot growers. Whenever a crime is committed follow the money.
Remember, shortly after 9-11 the Bush cartel said marijuana sales were funding terrorism. Reefer Madness is still alive and well and profitable.

[independentpiney]

52. When they claimed marijuana sales were funding terrorism

I started my own grow. I figured it was the least I could do to protect the homeland.

[Overseas]

11. K&R. Glad to hear it.

[WillyT]

12. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[eggplant]

13. The real reason why it is so hard to legalize it.

"Dude, we forgot to vote (again)!"

[Stargazer99]

14. the well to do can't have that-how are they going to kill off the poor and remain innocent?

[leftstreet]

16. DURec

[Half-Century Man]

19. It became ridiculous when Nixon ignored the report form his own research team,

and started the longest, most costly, most openly racist, most costly in civil liberties, most aided by treasonous factions in the government, most lives destroyed, with the most prisoners of war in the history of the world; the failed War on Drugs.

[Wella]

26. When politicians do the wrong thing, despite the evidence, there is usually another agenda

I have never thought that the drug war was about stopping drug use. I thought it was about protecting intelligence-community sponsored drug cartels.

[Logical]

29. +1000! Nt

[sarcasmo]

20. Kick!

[vt_native]

21. Big Pharma won't like this

Which is why MJ is illegal.

[demigoddess]

23. I am an old gray-haired grandma,

and I want to see it legalized nationwide. You young folks have got to get to the polls and vote it in. We did in my state. Your turn.

[Logical]

25. +1000 nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. rec

[lunasun]

28. Can you die from pot ? plus I heard the oils used are not really an overdose possibility IDK

all the pain killers you can get scripts for and so many backward states that do not allow or restrict MM?. Is the patient the priority ? Or the pain pill pushers who have lobbies with goodies?

[tjl148]

45. To your last two questions....

Unfortunately, I think we know the answer.
I worked for a hospice for 10 years and know what pain can do to someone if not treated properly. I couldn't understand why mm was not allowed. After reading this thread now I know. Money. I should have known, it is always the money. Damn them.

[lunasun]

46. +1

[madmax]

30. I'm a walking car wreck

I've been brutalized by Duke Med Center with a false diagnosis of Cancer 8 years ago. I'm paying for the mistake every day of my life. Taking so many pain killers I shouldn't be driving by I have NO ONE so I have to drive to ...where else the Dr. Walgreen's for more poison. I do get confused as to what I've taken even though I put them in a daily box thing. I'm losing my friggen mind. This week when I see the spine dr. who has been giving me injections besides synthetic morphine, percocets, gabapenton, a slew of other crap for Rheumatoid Arthritis, Depression, anxiety... This visit I'm asking him for the referral to the surgeon he mentioned. I want off MOST if not ALL these drugs.

People have told me that weed might help. I can't smoke weed now, I have to take a urine test each time. I can not function with the pain without these pills. I was on my back for 7 months. The pain was excruciating. The pain pills helped but, it was the injectons that finally, finally allowed me to stand and walk. The leg muscles were jello from the long layout but, I'm fighting back. Slowly.

When Duke just ran wild and used me as a lab rat they radiated my pelvis 18 times for no reason!!! I didn't have cancer but, they ran with the results of a needle biopsy. The radiation 'cooked' my abdominal muscles. I have none left. That and a fall at UNC wtf is it with these hospitals and offices. I slipped on a piece of plastic someone left on the floor, right onto my sacrum. That's where the back problems started. I remember the exact day. June 10th - last year.

When I moved here from NJ to NC 8 years ago I was a healthy woman. Could work along side any man. Now I'm a shell. Broken and beaten so badly I don't even know where to start. And when I was at the lowest point of my life. My husband of 32 years decides the useful mule is too much work. While at the dentist he filled lawn bags with his clothes, 4 amplifiers, the money from the bank and hit the road back to our home state, moved in with the woman he's been having an affair with for 4 years. Wow, a trifecta. Home town, all his friends, band mates, brothers, woman, job. Left me in NC like a bag of trash on the side of the road. And for added shits and giggles. No Fault Divorce. No One is responsible for anything, anywhere, anymore. Just kill me. Get out and Vote people, we're a lawless nation. Tanks in the streets, murdering civilians for no reason as if we're at war with, who? Our fellow countrymen. In the street, in the court rooms, in the hospitals. You have NO rights.

I wonder would Marijuana help me? Who knows, no one has mentioned that to me yet. Drugs, Exaglo 770.00 for a months supply without insurance. I had to pay the full price after Prince Charming just up and left or lay here alone in agony and starve and die. He never cared about my health or safety. Neither do the Dr.s. Just pump out those scripts baby. Haven't been to DU in ages due to all the b.s. with my life. Keep up with the news - it's all going to hell and I for one have lost all hope that we can turn this country around. Sorry for going off all over the place. I just vented it all out. The physical pain and not having my health because money and insurance allowed Duke to play.

[UglyGreed]

32. I'm sorry

for all that you have gone through. Marijuana might be helpful but it will not be able to control all the pain you must endure. Those who say it will are ignorant. Been there done that.

[grahamhgreen]

36. Stay strong girl. You may have some success with a high

CBD strain or extract.

[marions ghost]

37. It is possible to

Get off most of those drugs. Hold onto that as a goal, but give it time. Bit by bit. Step by step. Explore any and all alternatives that you can.

Sorry about all this trouble and misery. keep fighting

[lunasun]

47. Keep fighting . I was down for almost a year from a drug reaction that left me unable to walk or

think and see properly . That was over 5 years ago and I am healthy again. In the mean time Public Citizen sued the FDA to have a black box warning put on the medication but folks are having a hard time trying to sue big pharma company who knew the drug was a problem from the concept
Do research the surgery too . Do not go in to that blindly either ask about all scenarios and try to talk with others who have had it so you know what to expect. Surgeons just like Duke can be over aggressive and cause harm.
Take care and stay strong

[Trillo]

33. That's a strong incentive to Big Pharma.

I'm thinking they gotta keep marijuana illegal to keep pain killer profits up!

So sick of the many corruptions.

[UglyGreed]

35. Too bad painkillers

are not the top sellers. Lets not make those who suffer from pain suffer more by demonizing pain medication.

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-best-selling-blockbuster-drugs-2012-6?op=1

http://qz.com/116770/these-drugs-are-the-cash-cows-of-big-pharma/

[CountAllVotes]

51. +1,000 !!!

Thank you for pointing this out UglyGreed!! !!!

[Laelth]

34. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth

[joeybee12]

40. So do Big Pharma profits...hence the pushback...knr

[redruddyred]

49. prescription drugs are dangerous.

I find it amusing that we put poor minorities in jail for self-medicating with comparably harmless street drugs, while pharmaceutical companies are allowed to make specious claims about therapy effectiveness and side-effects.

[CountAllVotes]

50. and now this old info. is new info.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027072795

I for one believe that MMJ helps with pain to a point and only to a point.

It doesn't touch peripheral neuropathy, nope.

I wish they would find something that would "touch" peripheral neuropathy but the only thing that does is hard narcotics sadly.

I'm so tired of this crap. Very.

Can't get what I need but MMJ is all over the place.

MS SUCKS!!