How legalizing recreational cannabis can correlate to reduction in opioid demand
Talk about a win for our legalization movement! The ostensible benefits of legalization are constantly being touted by people within the industry, but sometimes it takes a study like this to put real-world data behind your favourite bud-tender’s anecdotes. Let’s dive in.A new study has found that states with legalized recreational cannabis use have seen a significant reduction in pharmacy-based codeine distribution.
The study was published in Health Economics, and is believed to be one of the first to separately examine the impact of recreational cannabis laws on shipments of opioids to hospitals, pharmacies, and other endpoint distributors. Data found that states with legalized recreational cannabis use have seen a 26% reduction in the pharmacy-based distribution of codeine to patients.
In addition, there was as much as a 37% reduction in demand when the legalization regime was in place for at least 4 years. This data is promising as it indicates that the misuse of opioids can actually be muted with further legalization efforts. This is not a panacea for the society-level clusterfuck that is the opioid epidemic, but for a drug that kills over 10,000 people a year via overdose, any harm reduction success will naturally eap outsized rewards.
Codeine is highly addictive but less potent than other opioids. This, according to Coleman Drake of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health, “is particularly meaningful” because people who would normally use (or misuse) codeine are apparently moving to legal cannabis.
While cannabis and opioids can be used to minimize chronic pain symptoms, they aren’t equivalent in their impact on holistic health (duh). Johanna Catherine Maclean, PhD. Of George Mason University states “while all substances have some risks, cannabis use is arguably less harmful to health than the non-medical use of prescription opioids.” Another duh.
