Patients often substitute medical marijuana for opioid pain medications and other drugs

Medical marijuana patients tend to reduce their use of prescription opioid pain medications, according to new research. The study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, investigated whether there was a “substitution effect” for medical cannabis — meaning that people with legal access to marijuana decide to use it instead of other medications. The researchers found that patients reduced their use of opioids and a number of other types of drugs after being provided with medical cannabis. “Among 1,500 medical cannabis patients, three-quarters that used opioids reported a reduction in their use after starting medical cannabis,” explained Brian J. Piper of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, the study’s corresponding author. “Over-two thirds also reported a reduction in anti-anxiety, migraine, and sleep medications. More broadly, there is much that doctors and biomedical researchers can learn about medical cannabis, and the conditions that it is used to treat, from patients.” Piper told PsyPost he was interested researching the topic, in part, because of the ongoing opioid addiction epidemic. “I was teaching neuropharmacology courses and invited Becky DeKeuster, MEd as a guest-lecturer to present about medical cannabis and its role in health care. At the same time, I was also doing pharmacoepidemiology research looking at the tremendous rates of prescription drug use and misuse. The state I was in when this project began (Maine) was, and continues to be, battling the opioid epidemic. Also, my wife is an oncology nurse and has had to find a balance between her patient’s needs and the complex legal status of medical cannabis.” “After carefully reading what had already been done, all of these factors converged for me, and other members of the research team (including a pharmacist and two anesthesiologists) to start a research project on this timely topic,” Piper said. The patients in the study were…

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