Big pharma wont like this study.

Since legalisation of medical Pot....The amount of prescription painkillers and their associated side effects, has dropped dramatically. One of the Major causes of death in the UK is Liver and Kidney damage due to taking pain killers that in reality ceased stopping pain in the first couple of months of taking them , as is the way with mock Opioids. Which means that the death rates in the States where its legal should fall accordingly. www.denverpost.com...

a reply to: anonentity

Awww. Another Big-Pharma business model, gone-up in smoke.

In medical-marijuana states, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety meds.

But most strikingly, the typical physician in a medical-marijuana state prescribed 1,826 fewer doses of painkillers in a year.

That's the best paragraph I've read all day.

Publix pharmacies in have put 800k towards fighting legalization.

The numbers of opioid sales have plummeted in the states that legalized.

I have boycotted any further business with them, and I spent some real cash monthly on groceries

I hope their family doesn't get cancer and need treatment.

These opioid pushers are legalized heroin distributors

a reply to: anonentity

That is a bit deceiving if you ask me. I happen to have been in pain management for 25 years now. I had 23 major surgeries after being shot and a couple car accidents. Anyway, I never had any problems with opiates and lab tests are still perfect. Now as a result of the new CDC guidelines and the DEA's recent new regulations prior to that things have changed dramatically for a lot of people.

If you have not had other treatment for pain, most doctors won't write you a script. You have to try all other modalities first. Surgery, physical therapy, massage therapy, nerve blocks, and on and on. Also they made the pharmacies only fill a percentage of narcotic prescriptions to other meds. It is like 20%. Then they limited the amount of opiates the pharmacy could order per month. This meant that even if your 20% of scripts were high, as in you had a lot more patients filling them, you are limited by the monthly limit and can only fill so many.

Then the new CDC guidelines cuts the amount doctors can prescribe unless you a cancer patient or terminal. There is a max MME (morphine milligram equivalent) per day you can prescribe. They want it at 50 or lower, and if the doc feels your case is serious enough then they can go up to 90 MME. All opiates have a conversion factor to calculate MME. Like hydromorphone it is 4. So one 8mg tablet equals 32MME.

Believe it or not, my MME was 630 when these regulations came out. I am down to 90 MME today. I had been on heavy meds for 25 years and built one hell of a tolerance. When I was in the hospital on one surgery this intern doctor came in with several others and the chief of maxiofacial surgery. The chief did all my surgery. He had wrote in my chart 10 grams of morphine over 12 hours. That is 10,000mg of morphine and they were still giving me what I got from pain management at the same time. This doctor shot the whole 10 grams in my IV at once. The chief freaked, as he should have, because that would kill most people. It didn't phase me, but that doctor had his medication and prescribing rights revoked on the spot.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that thousands of pain management patients have either been dismissed or quit seeing pain management doctors all together. Now they are wondering why there is a heroin epidemic. A large number of these patients have nowhere to turn and went to heroin which is actually cheaper that seeing a doctor every month and getting scripts filled. That and they couldn't get pain relief and turned to the street.

So, they really can't claim the drop in opiate prescriptions is ALL due to pot legalization. It is due to the war on pain patients and now there is even bigger problems because instead of getting clean pharmaceutical medication for their pain, they don't know what they are getting. Much of the heroin on the street is now laced with fentanyl. That also is killing people. Pure fentanyl the size of a grain of salt can kill 10 men.

a reply to: spirit_horse

Well, except for the fact the article specifically addresses the states that have legalized marijuana. Maybe you should read it. But if not, be glad marijuana is getting legal in more states. I have a friend with chronic pain who has been denied pain meds for the last two years. Now, the pain can be alleviated with a legal and cheap drug which has been stupidly and greedily denied in the past.

We just passed legalization here in Florida. I will soon be partaking in a new type of pain management.

What I am saying is even in legalized states, the drop in opiate prescriptions is not due to just legalization. It is also due to the new government restrictions which took effect in the same timeframe.

a reply to: spirit_horse

That is a fantastic analysis . The government has clamped down on all kinds of scripts recently. Heck even my Ambien which I used to get 3-4 refills per now requires a script for every renewal. So better statistical data is needed before cannabis is hailed as the reason for the decline.

a reply to: anonentity

Way too naive you lot are...

Big pharma, maybe not the biggest, but still sizeable, supplies medical marijuana!

fortune.com...

Number 2 has a market value of $2.2 billion

originally posted by: Chadwickus
a reply to: anonentity

Way too naive you lot are...

Big pharma, maybe not the biggest, but still sizeable, supplies medical marijuana!

fortune.com...

Number 2 has a market value of $2.2 billion

MONSANTO or Big Pharma will take over the Medical Marijuana industry, with a GMO version. They will produce a huge Medical Marijuana industry that has no health benefits - Due to Genetic Modification. The "Powers that Be" understand that the current beliefs in the Health Benefits of Medical Marijuana is an unstoppable force. They will run with this Zeitgeist and use it to their advantage.

GMO Medical Marijuana will be highly profitable to the industry (Big Pharma - MONSANTO), but ineffective to the user.

originally posted by: anonentity
Since legalisation of medical Pot....The amount of prescription painkillers and their associated side effects, has dropped dramatically. One of the Major causes of death in the UK is Liver and Kidney damage due to taking pain killers that in reality ceased stopping pain in the first couple of months of taking them , as is the way with mock Opioids. Which means that the death rates in the States where its legal should fall accordingly. www.denverpost.com...

That's the thing, for decades now even doctors and addiction medicine specialists have been saying that everything from alcohol to many prescription drugs are factually far more addictive and far more toxic for the body than marijuana. I've looked at the data, the addiction evidence, the medical toxicity science for various chemicals. It's true. It's only the uneducated idiots, or unscrupulous, who continue to say that these should be legal but not marijuana...

a reply to: Now2016

You have a very valid point. Perhaps that's why Bayer now OWNS Monsanto, and that with its "good" name they'll soon be priming the public to be expecting a "new, improved" GMO version of "medical grade" marijuana! I'd bet anything there's already prototype plants lurking in a dark corner somewhere, rubbing their leafy little hands together with anticipation, shuddering in unison with the Big Pharma CEO's as their combined joyous, maniacal laughter echoes through the halls of Hell 😈

originally posted by: anonentity
Big Pharma won't like this study.

And yet it was published in a peer reviewed journal that gets financial support from 'Big Pharma'.

Which means your title doesn't make sense.

- LINK -

The original article: Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Prescription Medication Use In Medicare

a reply to: anonentity

I would be interested in perusing studies on effects of long-term cannabis use on mental health, the cardiovascular system, and road safety.

originally posted by: spirit_horse
a reply to: anonentity
I never had any problems with opiates

At 630 MME for 25 years plus the tolerance you describe, I think you are deceiving yourself.

originally posted by: CJCrawley
a reply to: anonentity

I would be interested in perusing studies on effects of long-term cannabis use on mental health, the cardiovascular system, and road safety.

No one is stopping you. Google is your friend. Or Bing......

originally posted by: spirit_horse
a reply to: anonentity


So, they really can't claim the drop in opiate prescriptions is ALL due to pot legalization. It is due to the war on pain patients...

I don't think they make any such claim.

They're just pointing out that doctors in states with a medical MJ program write fewer scripts for certain medications - on average - than doctors in states without a medical MJ program.

The factor you mention - "the war on pain patients" - would lower opiate prescriptions equally across all states and would not account for the statistics cited in the article, which show a drop in opiate prescriptions specifically in MMJ states in comparison with non-MMJ states.

a reply to: anonentity

Just wait till the secret about curing cancer through Cannibas Oil Extract (non-THC) comes out...that is going to kill BigPharma

a reply to: Rubicon3

Monsanto has big green houses here in St Louis (their plant tech is based here). They are always looking to monetize plants of every kind. And they have a massive advertising budget to show how much they love farmers.

I am sure super-GMO pot is out there.

Speaking of medical heroin, it is given out like candy in Missouri for pain. Then the doctors expect you to wean yourself off it. THAT, in my opinion, is where it all starts.
No one educates you about these drugs before they hand you the scrip. They might write for 10 pills, and then when you use those up the dance begins to keep supplied.

No one works to get people to try other pain relief. I am a firm believer in a wide spectrum of things to try (massage, herbs, hot toddy, salves) for pain. Yet the people I know who have pain must research this info themselves. The docs in our area much prefer a script to info.

My 86 year old mother is recovering from a broken leg and she is refusing opiates for pain. The nurses are baffled, but I get it. Once you get hooked there is little way out.