93% of Cannabis Patients prefer the treatment over Opioids for managing pain

in #marijuana7 years ago

A new study recently investigated what preferences patients had for pain relief. We all know the amazing health benefits of Medicinal Marijuana, and the numbers certainly don't lie about what people would rather have. Compared to old medicine (addictive opioids and such), almost everyone would choose cannabis for long-term effects and it being the healthier option.

"Out of the 2,810 participants who were currently using cannabis, 828 had used opioids in the last 6 months to manage their pain.

Of that group, "97 percent of the sample 'strongly agreed/agreed' that they are able to decrease the amount of opioids they consume when they also use cannabis. In addition, 89 percent 'strongly agreed/agreed' that taking opioids produces unwanted side effects such as constipation and nausea," the researchers wrote."

Up above you can see the results of basically patients saying they'd prefer to use cannabis over opioids if given a chance to.

Just wanted to remind you guys about the effects and benefits:

"The researchers also found that "81 percent 'strongly agreed/agreed' that taking cannabis by itself was more effective at treating their condition than taking cannabis with opioids"."

With tens of thousands dying from opioids/opiates each year, and Marijuana killing ZERO... the choice is obvious. But now the issue of legality remains, Marijuana is still Schedule 1 after all. That means that it basically has no health benefits and is on the same level as Heroin, or so the government and the DEA are saying.

What do you think of this? Will Marijuana drop down to Schedule 4 or at least Schedule 3 or 2 anytime soon? Which state do you think is the next to legalize? And if you are on any meds right now, would you rather MMJ?


LINKS
http://www.sciencealert.com/93-of-patients-prefer-cannabis-over-opioids-for-managing-their-pain-according-to-new-study


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Sorry kiddos for the slowing down of posts recently, my time got really limited (and tomorrow will be a busy day as well). I'm excited to get back to posting soon ;) hope you're all doing well!

upvoted! i wish to give $10 upvote but my max vote only $0.03

lol thank you :) here's profit for you

I live in Georgia and I have MS, a covered medical category for medical marijuana in most states that allow it. Georgia legalized medical marijuana...BUT...I could obtain a medical card for possession of medical marijuana. Georgia has not set up any legislation approving dispensing or otherwise obtaining marijuana scripts.

I live very close to the border of Florida. If I filled a script at one of their dispensories (if this were an option), it would be a felony if I were to be stopped crossing the state line. Here's to hoping Georgia get's it together soon.

I wish the results of this study were accurate, but sadly there's a lot of issues with how it was set up. First of all, the people interviewed came from a list of medical marijuana patients. As we all kind of know, a lot of medical marijuana patients (especially in California, which has very lax regulations) don't really "need" cannabis for their conditions, and many have only applied for a rec because they like to smoke cannabis. And for a lot of those patients, they simply put down "chronic pain" as their reason despite not technically having severe enough chronic pain to get opioid painkillers. The study didn't discriminate against these users, so it's not very surprising that a bunch of cannabis fanatics supported cannabis over opioids. Leaving aside the question of how many of them have even tried opioids before, it's not clear what level of "chronic pain" they even have. From the way I've heard it described, opioid analgesics are the only drugs that can really treat sharp, acute pains successfully. In that sense, this study seemed biased from the start.

That said, cannabis still has plenty of benefits. Opioids are definitely over-prescribed in the US, and a lot of those prescriptions could be replaced with a safer, less addictive alternative (such as THC). This study definitely tells some story, just maybe not what it's intended to say.

Very true and I can speak from personal experience, well I should say second hand personal experience. My girlfriend had breast cancer. Here in our state you need to be stage 4 for a Dr. to even consider giving it to you and even then none really want to go out on a limb and do it.

She was going through chemo and radiation for a couple years, during that time had a couple major knee surgeries as well, totally unrelated to the cancer but pain none the less.

Not only did weed do more to control the pain than opiates, opiates are also incredibly addictive, mess up your stomach, constipate you, and honestly all the other garbage pharmaceuticals they gave her all had a side effect so they give you one medication to control nausea, but then have to give you 5 others to control the side effects the nausea medication gives you.

I'm glad to see slowly but surely the medical marijuana legitimization taking effect.

How is your girlfriend now? And which state are you guys from if I may ask?

Hey @avilsd , thanks for asking. SHe's doing great she's in remission. She still has to take tomoxofin which is basically like a lower dose chemo in a pill so still things are not 100% being on a shitty medication like that but green definately does help with that as well but honestly can't complain we are very fortunate.

Her knee is healing up, the cancer is gone for now so things are great.

Were in Illinois by teh way.

great work! keep it up!

Thank you Steemking. You should get a throne when you hit 10K followers one day, gotta defend that title bro

It's been obvious for years that big pharma has a big part in keeping marijuana illegal. I think they only have a few years left before we see a schedule change and perhaps country wide medical legalisation.

Cheers bro

Big Pharma will get involved eventually into it, and when they do.. that's a lot of money suddenly flowing in.

Why is the federal government still against it?

I'm glad to hear people are benefiting from the cannabis plant. Even if it only helps pain, that is a lot for someone.

Some people/families need it for their epileptic children, and that's what has me most excited. When everything gets legalized, or at least decriminalized, it's going to be a very interesting time. We'll look back at the post and be happy of how far we've come!

I really feel that cannabis has the potential to solve the opioid epidemic if only the plant was legalized. It is such a shame that the US Government considers cannabis a schedule 1 drug, with no medical benefits. Tell that to MS and Cancer patients whose only relief comes from the cannabis plant.

Cannabis will become a trillion dollar industry. No doubt about it, it'll go nationwide and then eventually global scale. It's just going to take decades.. if not longer, but still. One day it'll be different ;)