Pubdate: Fri, 05 Aug 2011
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2011 The Arizona Republic
Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Edward Gogek
Note: Edward Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist and a board member of Keep
AZ Drug Free.

MEDICAL POT JUST A SMOKESCREEN

Arizona's medical-marijuana law has been in effect for three months
and registered more than 7,500 patients, and the numbers suggest
they're almost all recreational users.

Proposition 203 was sold to Arizona with ads about cancer victims, but
most medical-marijuana patients don't have major diseases. Only 18
percent of cardholders got marijuana for cancer, glaucoma, hepatitis,
Crohn's disease or HIV. Instead, 85 percent got their pot for chronic
pain. (There's some overlap.)

Pain is a common medical problem that requires treatment, but as every
practicing physician knows, it's also the favorite complaint of drug
addicts.

It's easy to fake and impossible to disprove. And a simple demographic
comparison suggests that most of the people claiming pain on Arizona's
marijuana registry are not telling the truth.

When I ask doctors who treat pain, they tell me that slightly more of
their patients are female.

A review of 23 studies, published this year, confirmed that result:
Women are more likely than men to seek medical help for chronic pain.
One very good study, done in Australia, found that women with chronic
pain outnumbered men 55 percent to 45 percent. Medical-marijuana
patients should have a similar ratio.

There are other illnesses for which people are prescribed marijuana,
with gender ratios ranging from 36 percent male in multiple sclerosis
to 75 percent male in HIV.

But patients claiming pain make up such a large percentage of
marijuana cardholders that even if all the rest of the patients had
illnesses that were 75 percent male, it would barely shift the
expected ratio.

It would go from slightly more women than men to equal numbers of
each.

So if all of Arizona's medical-marijuana patients are genuinely ill
and requesting marijuana only to relieve suffering, at most, half
should be men.

On the other hand, if these patients are really drug abusers who are
only pretending to be seriously ill, men will make up a much higher
percentage.

Substance abuse, especially in adults, is primarily a male
disorder.

According to the latest data from the National Survey of Drug Use and
Health, 74 percent of adults who meet criteria for cannabis abuse or
dependence are male. So if medical-marijuana patients are drug abusers
who primarily want marijuana to get high, around three-fourths will be
men.

And that's exactly what we find. The Arizona Department of Health
Services website says 75 percent of the medical-marijuana applicants
are male. The odds of this happening by chance are less than one in a
trillion.

The most plausible explanation is that nearly all of these patients
are faking or exaggerating their problems. They might have pain or
other serious illnesses, but that1s not why they're using marijuana.

If they're substance abusers, and the data says the vast majority
probably are, then they're using pot to get high and the illnesses are
just an excuse.

According to the numbers released so far, medical marijuana in Arizona
is barely medical at all. It's almost entirely a program of
recreational use.
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.