Two studies, from the University of Georgia and the University of Kentucky, found that in states where medical marijuana is legal, there was a smaller prescription rate of opioids.
The study from the University of Georgia sought out to find out the “association between US state implementation of medical cannabis laws [MCL] and opioid prescribing under Medicare Part D.”
According to data obtained from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), 70% of people enrolled in Medicare are subscribed to Medicare Part, which is an “optional prescription drug benefit” that was introduced in 2003.
In data analyzed from 2010 to 2015, researchers at the University of Georgia found that prescriptions of opioids went down by 2.11 million daily doses when a state legalized medical marijuana and went down by 3.7 million when marijuana dispensaries were opened.
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The second study from the University of Kentucky also found similar results using data based on Medicaid.
Medicaid provides health care to low-income adults and the study has said: “these findings suggest that medical and adult-use marijuana laws have the potential to reduce opioid prescribing for Medicaid enrollees.”
According to a recent article from CBC News, the University of Kentucky study “compared the states where marijuana laws took effect versus states without such laws” and the “results showed that laws that let people use marijuana to treat specific medical conditions were associated with about a 6 percent lower rate of opioid prescribing for pain.”
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Researchers of this study focused more on Medicaid prescription data from 2011 to 2016.
Although the studies used data obtained from other sources and not individual patients, which may not provide a completely accurate picture, they seem to act as a catalyst for pro-activists of the legalization of marijuana.
Both stories were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine.
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