Legalizing medical cannabis appears to significantly lessen monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, according to recently published research, with authors finding \u201cevidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute\u201d for prescription painkillers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find MML [medical marijuana legalization] leads opioid manufacturers to decrease direct payments to physicians prescribing opioids,\u201d wrote authors, from the University of Florida, University of Southern California and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. \u201cOur analyses suggest this shift is due to increased adoption of marijuana for pain management, indicating that opioid manufacturers perceive marijuana as a superior substitute and respond by reducing these payments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study was published late last year in the Journal of the American Statistical Association and was partially funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. It looked at various financial incentives that opioid drugmakers provide to prescribing doctors\u2014such as consulting fees and travel to conferences\u2014and used a novel method of analysis meant to estimate causal effects from observational data.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur analysis finds a significant decrease in direct payments from opioid manufacturers to pain medication physicians as an effect of MML passage,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
Wreetabrata Kar, an assistant professor of marketing in the SUNY Buffalo\u2019s school of management, co-authored the new study.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur findings indicate that medical marijuana is increasingly viewed as a substitute for opioids in chronic pain treatment, with the potential to transform pain management practices and help mitigate the opioid crisis that has profoundly affected communities across the U.S.,\u201d the researcher explained in a press release. \u201cThe availability of new pain management options can change the financial dynamics between drug companies and health care providers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s analysis found that decreases in direct payments from opioid makers to physicians was higher among physicians \u201cpracticing in localities with higher white populations, lower affluence, and a larger proportion of working-age residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLower income regions tend to have higher rates of chronic pain and opioid misuse, making them key areas for potential substitution with medical marijuana,\u201d Kar said<\/a>. \u201cBlack patients are also less likely to be prescribed opioids for pain, and younger populations may be more open to alternative treatments, which could explain the different impacts of marijuana legalization in these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n The study emphasizes that while its focus is the relationship between opioid manufacturers and doctors, \u201cit\u2019s crucial to consider how MML affects patient pain management,\u201d noting that annual prescription data shows a decrease in opioid prescriptions among states that legalized medical cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom 2015 to 2017, in the states not passing an MML, 30 days\u2019 fill of opioid versus non-opioid remained flat,\u201d the paper<\/a> says. \u201cHowever, in the states passing an MML, from 2015 to 2017, 30 days\u2019 fill as well as the number of days of prescription of opioid versus non-opioid decreased from a 1.57:1 ratio to a 1.52:1 ratio. In particular, the pattern of opioid versus non-opioid prescriptions did not change in the control states, while there was a relative decrease in opioid prescriptions in the MML states from 2015 to 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n Separate research published late last year also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a \u201cconsistent negative relationship\u201d between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier<\/a> in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization \u201cis associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,\u201d that report said. \u201cPrevious research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFurther, this effect increases with earlier implementation of [recreational marijuana legalization],\u201d it added, \u201cindicating this relationship is relatively consistent over time.\u201d<\/p>\n Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state\u2019s legalization of medical marijuana<\/a> found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that \u201ccannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Yet another study, published in 2023, linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids<\/a> and other prescription medications. And another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) last February, found that chronic pain patients who received medical marijuana for longer than a month saw significant reductions in prescribed opioids<\/a>.<\/p>\n About\u00a0one in three chronic pain patients reported using cannabis<\/a> as a treatment option, according to a 2023 AMA-published report. Most of that group said they used cannabis as a substitute for other pain medications, including opioids.<\/p>\n Other research published that year found that letting people buy CBD legally significantly reduced opioid prescription rates<\/a>, leading to 6.6 percent to 8.1 percent fewer opioid prescriptions.<\/p>\n A 2022 research paper that analyzed Medicaid data on prescription drugs, meanwhile, found that legalizing marijuana for adult use was associated with\u00a0\u201csignificant reductions\u201d in the use of prescription drugs<\/a>\u00a0for the treatment of multiple conditions.<\/p>\n A 2023 report\u00a0linked state-level medical marijuana legalization to reduced opioid payouts to doctors<\/a>\u2014another datapoint suggesting that patients use cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs when given legal access.<\/p>\n Researchers in another study, published last year, looked at opioid prescription and mortality rates in Oregon, finding that nearby access to retail marijuana moderately reduced opioid prescriptions<\/a>, though they observed no corresponding drop in opioid-related deaths.<\/p>\n Other recent research also indicates that cannabis may be an effective substitute for opioids in terms of pain management.<\/p>\n A report published recently in the journal BMJ Open, for instance, compared medical marijuana and opioids for chronic non-cancer pain and\u00a0found that cannabis \u201cmay be similarly effective and result in fewer discontinuations than opioids,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0potentially offering comparable relief with a lower likelihood of adverse effects.<\/p>\n Separate research published found that more than half (57 percent) of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain said cannabis was more effective than other analgesic medications, while 40 percent reported reducing their use of other painkillers since they began using marijuana<\/a>.<\/p>\n A related report published late last year examined the effects of adding medical marijuana to state prescription drug monitoring programs, concluding that the additional tracking had mixed effects, both reducing the prescription of medications that could cause complications with cannabis and also exposing a possible bias against medical marijuana patients among healthcare providers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Young Adults Are Three Times More Likely To Use Marijuana On A Near-Daily Basis Than Alcohol, Federally Funded Study Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Legalizing Medical Marijuana Leads To \u2018Significant Decrease\u2019 In Opioid Companies\u2019 Payments To Pain Doctors, Study Shows<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Legalizing medical cannabis appears to significantly lessen monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, according to recently published research, with authors finding \u201cevidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute\u201d for prescription painkillers. \u201cWe find MML [medical marijuana legalization] leadsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,15462],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79658"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79659,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79658\/revisions\/79659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Legalizing Medical Marijuana Leads To \u2018Significant Decrease\u2019 In Opioid Companies\u2019 Payments To Pain Doctors, Study Shows<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"