A growing sect of pain physicians and addiction specialists are using marijuana to help opioid addicts curb their habit, reports The New York Times.
Here are three things to know.
1. One driving force behind this use of marijuana is the drug's legalization in states like California, according to the report.
2. Mark Wallace, MD, chairman of the division of pain medicine in the department of anesthesia at UC San Diego, said in the report he has weaned several hundred patients off opiates in recent years with marijuana. Though Dr. Wallace notes in the report that the evidence supporting the method is currently anecdotal.
"The majority of patients continue to use it [marijuana]," he told NYT. But he also said in the report that his patient say of opiates: "I feel like I was a slave to that drug. I feel like I have my life back."
3. But studies regarding the use of marijuana to combat opioid addiction provide mixed results. The report cites one study from the National Academy of Sciences on the health effects of cannabis, which "found no evidence to support or refute the conclusion that cannabinoids are an effective treatment for achieving abstinence in the use of addictive substances," Harvard professor and study committee chairwoman Marie McCormick, MD, said according to the report. However, NYT cites a 2014 study, which concluded: "Medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates."
Read the full report here.
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