Medicinal Marijuana Reduces Patients Need for Opioid Painkillers

Recently in Time magazine, there has been a couple articles published regarding studies on medicinal marijuana. This week, a study performed by Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics backs up a long standing claim that medicinal marijuana can be safely used along with opioid painkillers, such as morphine or Oxycontin, and that the patient could potentially even take less of the addictive pills because of it. The study concluded that patients that took medicinal marijuana along with the pain medication had reduced pain by an average of 27% while their blood pressure remained unaffected. The key component to this data is that if the blood pressure was drastically affected, it could have increased overdose risk. Since this isn't the case, the use of medicinal marijuana as a pain killer seems to be effective and could provide patients with lower doses of opioids with less side effects. After a five day study, no medical problems occurred. However, the side effects of opioid painkillers have been proven to be potentially harmful; recently, "the death toll associated with prescription painkillers has recently surpassed that of traffic accidents" (Szalavitz). The positive data for medicinal marijuana seems to be slowly emerging as less biased sources and study have become more prevalent in the last few decades. However, despite all the positive data that has come about, "the Obama administration is currently engaged in a crackdown on marijuana dispensaries in the 16 states that have legalized medical use" causing researchers difficulties finding funding to conduct studies on medicinal marijuana (Szalavitz). Considering all the risk factors of both drugs, the present legal situation makes hardly any sense. Cracking down on the beneficial medicinal marijuana while trying to prevent drug overdose seems counterproductive. Overall, considering that I have found two articles on medicinal marijuana for this current blog post and my last blog post in just a week or so, I thoroughly look forward to medicinal marijuana getting more publicity and to see how the country handles the new data presented. Clearly, these articles are intended for the American public to become more informed on the issues of medicinal marijuana.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/12/could-medical-marijuana-reduce-patients-need-for-opioid-painkillers/#ixzz1gMTPI8qW

Medicinal Marijuana Legalization Helps Reduce Traffic Deaths

The use of marijuana in society today has caused one of the most controversial debates to date. Marijuana under the classification of a schedule I drug has no medical benefits. However, in sixteen states and the District of Columbia, marijuana has been legalized under medicinal marijuana. This means that if you qualify for certain medical conditions, a doctor can prescribe the patient a card to legally smoke marijuana. A new study conducted by IZA, a nonprofit labor research organization associated with the University of Bonn in Germany, and data collected by National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration used government data from 1990-2009 claim that fatal car accidents dropped by 9% in those states that legalized medicinal marijuana. The analysts believe this is due to the decline in drunk driving in those states. However, these marijuana laws hardly affected daytime driving accidents and those without alcohol involved. Yet after medicinal marijuana was legalized alcohol related crashes dropped 12% and high B.A.C. crashes dropped 14%. In terms of fatal car accidents, the effect of legalizing medicinal marijuana is comparable to when the minimum drinking age established at 21 years old. The analysts conclude this drastic drop is due to the fact that those in their 20’s, mostly college students, have decreased their use of alcohol and are smoking weed instead. Research on driving under the influence of marijuana is inconsistent; some believe that it causes impairment while other found little effect. However, clearly the date on drunk driving apparently portrays that alcohol drastically alters ones driving abilities. It is obvious that driving under the influence of marijuana is less risky because the driver is more aware of the effects and they compensate for the effects while driving while drunk increases recklessness and causes one a false confidence. This article is directed towards those who live in states both with and without medicinal marijuana to show that the effects of legalization medicinal marijuana are positive.

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