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More than 90 Americans a day die from opioid overdose, resulting in more than 42,000 deaths per year, so it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if legal weed is going to make overdosing on opioids its bitch, then we should probably move forward with it.
According to CNN, the United States is entangled in the worst opioid epidemic the world has ever seen, but two recent studies suggest medical marijuana can be quite a powerful tool in the fight to bring that epidemic to an end.
The studies were published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, with both of them comparing “opioid prescription patterns in states that have enacted medical cannabis laws with those that have not.” The result? You guessed it – medical pot was once again proved to be “the shit,” as states that allowed the use of herb for medical purposes had 2.21 million fewer daily doses of opioids prescribed per year under Medicare Part D compared with those states without medical cannabis laws.
On top of that, opioid prescriptions under Medicaid also dropped by 5.88 percent in states with medical cannabis laws compared with states that are, quite frankly, lame.
David Bradford, a professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia and the lead author of the Medicare study, said his study “adds one more brick in the wall in the argument that cannabis clearly has medical applications.”
More good news: Weed Isn’t Harmful To Anyone Because The World Health Organization Says So
“And for pain patients in particular, our work adds to the argument that cannabis can be effective.” Bradford added.
Given that Medicare Part D covers more than 42 million Americans and Medicaid provides health coverage to more than 73 million low-income individuals in the US, is it just us or is this one the biggest no-brainer since the powers that be brought back Full House?
Of course, the answer is yes, brah.
