Prescription Drug Rates Drop As More Patients Turn to Cannabis

Recent findings show that medical marijuana not only saves state and federal governments millions of dollars on Medicare but it may help curb prescription drug use too. A new study reports that in states where medical marijuana is available, prescriptions for painkillers have dipped drastically.

There's been a spate of studies on how overdose and painkiller abuse - - particularly among chronic pain patients - are lower in medical marijuana states, but the researchers have largely hypothesized that these patients are picking pot over prescription drugs. Now, a recent report in the journal Health Affairs suggests that the link between prescriptions and marijuana is no longer just a hypothesis.

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