CBS News: "Medical marijuana could help quell the ongoing opioid epidemic, a pair of new studies contends.
Opioid prescriptions tend to decrease in U.S. states that adopt medical marijuana laws or legalize recreational use of pot, two different research teams have concluded.
The studies couldn't prove cause and effect. But one study found that opioids dispensed through Medicare's prescription drug plan decreased significantly if people had access to medical pot dispensaries or were allowed to grow marijuana for their own use.
"We had about a 14.5 percent reduction in opiate use when states turned on dispensaries, and about a 7 percent reduction in opiate use when states turned on home cultivation-based cannabis laws," said researcher David Bradford, chairman of public policy at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs.
The other study, led by researcher Hefei Wen, from the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, found a decrease in opioid prescriptions covered by Medicaid in states that legalized either medicinal or recreational pot.
Both types of laws were linked to about a 6 percent decline in opioid prescribing, researchers reported.
"We do think there's good reason to be hopeful that cannabis might be one tool out of many we could use to address the opioid epidemic," Bradford said."
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REQUESTS FOR COMMENTS TO FDA DUE BY APRIL 23 ON International Drug Scheduling; Convention on Psychotropic Substances; Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; Cannabis Plant and Resin; Extracts and Tinctures of Cannabis; Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol; Stereoisomers of Tetrahydrocannabinol; Cannabidiol;
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FDA_FRDOC_0001-8331
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