Cannabis Legalization Reduced Rx Drug Use for Several Conditions, Not Just Pain
/By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
Cannabis products are often touted for their pain relieving properties and some studies have shown that medical marijuana can even help patients reduce their use of opioids.
But a large new study by researchers at Cornell University found that legalization of recreational marijuana significantly reduced demand for a broad range of prescription drugs used to treat depression, anxiety, seizures and other health conditions.
The study, published in the journal Health Economics, looked at prescription data for Medicaid patients in all 50 states from 2011 to 2019, focusing on 11 states where the recreational use of cannabis was legalized: Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Researchers found significant reductions in Medicaid prescribing rates for pain and five other condition-specific drug classes after the first year of legalization:
-12.2% Anxiety-11.1% Depression-10.8% Sleep-10.7% Psychosis-9.5% Seizures-8% Pain
Prescribing rates for the six conditions declined even more in the second and third years after recreational cannabis was legalized.
"These results have important implications," wrote lead author Shyam Raman, a doctoral student in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. "The reductions in drug utilization that we find could lead to significant cost savings for state Medicaid programs. The results also indicate a potential harm reduction opportunity, as pharmaceutical drugs often come with dangerous side effects or – as with opioids – potential for misuse.”
Raman and his colleagues did not see a measurable change in the prescribing of drugs used to treat nausea, spasticity or glaucoma. They also note that their study did not look at the health of patients who stopped or reduced their use of prescription drugs, or at the long-term effects of substituting cannabis for pharmaceuticals.
A small study at Harvard Medical School recently found that chronic pain patients reported significant improvements in their pain, sleep, mood, anxiety and quality of life after six months of cannabis therapy.
Recreational cannabis is now legal in 18 states and Washington, DC, while medical marijuana is legal in 37 states and Washington, DC. Cannabis has become so popular — and accessible — that a recent Harris poll found that twice as many Americans are using cannabis or cannabidiol (CBD) to manage their pain than opioids.
While the findings are intriguing, the small number of patients involved in most cannabis studies makes it hard to draw firm conclusions. In 2021, two professional pain societies – the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists -- released policy statements saying they could not endorse the use of cannabis for pain because there are no large, high-quality clinical trials of cannabis as an analgesic.
