Trump Administration’s dubious claims about pot and opioids are dead wrong

Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

The Trump administration hinted yesterday of a forthcoming federal crackdown in the eight states that have elected to regulate their marijuana markets. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer alleges that such federal intrusion is necessary in order to try and stem the rising tide of prescription opioid abuse sweeping across various parts of the nation.

Spicer stated , "I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people (by regulating the adult use of marijuana)."

Yet even a cursory look at the available evidence finds Spicer's concerns to be misplaced and his allegations to be dead wrong.

In reality, permitting legal access to cannabis is consistently associated with reduced rates of opioid use, abuse, and mortality.

For example, a widely publicized study in the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine reported that the enactment of medical marijuana legalization laws is associated with year-over-year reductions in opioid analgesic overdose mortality. Overall, researchers determined, "States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 percent lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared with states without medical cannabis laws."

The JAMA study is hardly unique. A 2015 examination by investigators at the RAND Corporation similarly determined, "[S]tates permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not."

A 2016 assessment by Castlight Health, an employee health benefits platform provider, reported that adults are more than twice as likely to engage in doctor shopping for opioids in states without cannabis access as compared to states that permit it.

Allowing adults legal access to marijuana is also associated with the reduced use of other, potentially more dangerous prescription drugs. For example, investigators at the University of Georgia assessed the relationship between medical marijuana legalization laws and physicians' prescribing patterns in 17 states over a three-year period. Specifically, researchers assessed patients' consumption of and spending on prescription drugs approved under Medicare Part D in nine domains: anxiety, depression, glaucoma, nausea, pain, psychosis, seizures, sleep disorders, and spasticity.
Go to top