More than a hundred years ago cannabis, opioids, and other drugs were available in various mixtures to treat a wide variety of ailments. Notably during the civil war, where the use of morphine and later, Bayer’s blockbuster drug “Heroine”, lead to the creation of a large number of opioid addicts. At the time, cannabis was also explored to treat symptoms of drug addiction and other illnesses, sometimes in combination with other powerful drugs. Fast forwarding to today, recent research has shown that cannabis access laws can affect the use of prescription drugs and opioids. The effect of these laws on opioid use is not well understood for all dimensions of use and for the general United States population. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of the current research on prescription drugs and cannabis laws, and providing potential mechanisms to explain the observations. Of particular interest is a dataset of over 1.3 billion individual opioid prescriptions between 2011 and 2017, which were aggregated to the individual provider-year level, the research has demonstrated that recreational and medical cannabis access laws reduce the number of morphine milligram equivalents prescribed each year by 6.9 and 6.1 percent, respectively. These laws also reduce the total days supply of opioids prescribed, the total number of patients receiving opioids, and the probability a provider prescribes any opioids net of any offsetting effects. Concern for the long-term use of opioids has existed for millennia, the wave of current fear gripping the nation no doubt has come about because the increasing morbidity and mortality associated with their use in treating non-malignant chronic pain. Additionally, we find consistent evidence that cannabis access laws have different effects across prescription drug practices, such as opioids, and the types of providers and physician specialties. Lastly this presentation is will discuss gaps in our understanding of the pharmacology of cannabis.<br/> <br/>

Old wine in new bottles: The health and safety implications of the cannabis access law on the prescription drug epidemic

2019 Spring National Meeting

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