Opioid Use In The US Is Incredibly Decreasing, Is It Because Of Medical Marijuana?

As we all know the request to legalize the use of medical marijuana has been growing. For some, they use it for pain killers and some for anxiety. Yet, research shows that Opioid use in the United States is incredibly decreasing and it looks like it's all thanks to medical marijuana.

Researchers from Columbia University analyzed the data from 1999 to 2013, they found that between the states that legalize marijuana, has a reduction in testing positive for opioids, after accidents resulting death by car crash from ages 21 to 40.

After the medical marijuana law was implemented, almost half of the drivers with the same age bracket who died in a car crash almost tested positive for opioids. They have seen that before such law was implemented, drivers with the same age tested positive for the presence of the painkillers in their system.

In 2014, the fatalities in US alone accounted to about 18,893 which was caused by prescription painkillers. Thus, a recent study shows that opioid overdose and dependence in the US has an estimated cost of $78.5 billion, according to Medical Daily.

For experts to get these results, they examine 18 states where cases of opioids overdose were detected with more than 69,000 traffic fatalities. The results were then published in the American Journal for Public Health. Thus, there is a difference in numbers for opioids user to slowly decrease.

In some cases like the State of Montana, they have experienced a 1.7 percent decrease in the number of people who tested positive for opioids after the medical marijuana law was implemented. The legalization was voted into law in 2014. The state has a population of at least 1 million, including 30,000 patients and 4,900 legal weed providers.

Doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, lead author June H. Kim said that it is a pretty moderate to large devaluation. She also said that they are expecting negative consequences of opioid use to reduce over time in states where medical marijuana use is legal, as people substitute marijuana for opioids in the treatment of chronic pain as reported by RT Question More.