Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Niraj Chokshi
Page: A2

MEDICAL-MARIJUANA STATES SEE FEWER DRUG DEATHS

States that allow medical marijuana have 25 percent fewer deaths from 
prescription drug overdoses, a team of researchers reports in a newly 
released academic paper, suggesting that expanded access to 
marijuana, often used for its purported pain-alleviating qualities, 
could have unintended benefits.

As awareness of the addiction and overdose risks associated with 
painkillers such as Oxy-Contin and Vicodin grows, "individuals with 
chronic pain and their medical providers may be opting to treat pain 
entirely or in part with medical marijuana," Colleen L. Barry, an 
associate professor in the department of health policy and management 
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a 
statement. Barry was the senior author of the study, which was 
conducted by researchers from the Bloomberg School and the 
Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The researchers found that states with medical-marijuana laws 
consistently had lower overdose death rates throughout the years 
studied - 1999 to 2010 - and that such laws were associated with a 
24.8 percent lower annual rate of painkiller-overdose deaths. Those 
states had 1,729 fewer overdose deaths in 2010 than would have been 
predicted by trends in states without such laws.

To conduct their analysis, published Monday in the peer-reviewed JAMA 
Internal Medicine, the researchers relied on Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention death certificate data. The rate of overdose 
deaths rose in all states over the study period. California, Oregon 
and Washington were the only states with medical-marijuana laws in 
place before 1999, while 10 more had joined by 2010.

Although the results seem to suggest that the availability of 
marijuana may lure people away from prescription drugs, the 
researchers cautioned against drawing that conclusion too decisively. 
Factors specific to each state, such as attitudes about health, could 
explain the association between marijuana laws and overdose deaths, 
for example.

The researchers did, however, explore whether other policies 
targeting painkiller abuse - such as having a drug-monitoring program 
or allowing pharmacists to ask for patient identification before 
dispensing medication - were associated with declines in overdose 
death rates. They did not find a significant connection.

Among the study's shortcomings is the fact that the researchers could 
not account for socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, medical or psychiatric 
differences among state populations.

But if further work can corroborate their findings, they wrote, 
enacting medical-marijuana laws could be promoted as part of a 
package of policies aimed at reducing painkiller abuse.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom