Survey: Pain patients overwhelmingly prefer medical marijuana over opioids

[Jimbo101]

ARS Technica

Of those who used both opioids and cannabis, 92% say they prefer the latter.

When patients have a choice between opioids and medical marijuana for a painful condition, an overwhelming majority say they prefer marijuana, that it works just as well, and has fewer side effects, a new survey finds.

Though the survey, involving 2,897 medical cannabis patients, didn’t track actual drug use or efficacy, the findings fits with previous data. Decades of research suggest marijuana is effective for pain treatment. And recent studies have found that in states with medical marijuana availability, there are fewer opioid overdose deaths and doctors fill fewer opioid prescriptions.

The authors of the new survey, led by Amanda Reiman of the University of California, Berkeley, say the data furthers the need to examine marijuana as a “viable substitute for pain treatment,” particularly in light of the devastating opioid epidemic now gripping the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that opioids killed more than 33,000 Americans in 2015, and estimates that 91 people in the US die each day from the highly addictive drugs.

Though people using marijuana can develop use disorders, it is virtually impossible to die of an overdose—no marijuana overdose deaths have ever been reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I know a couple of people who tell me the same thing.

[cilla4progress]

2. That was my husband's experience

dealing with a kidney stone. The huge bottle of opioids with refills left him feeling groggy and didn't actually help much with the pain. Weed helped with the pain, and didn't space him out so much.

[Mosby]

3. I don't think this proves what they think it proves.