The focal point of President Obama's final State of the Union address --\nthe opiate epidemic -- appeared to highlight the urgency with which the\nadministration regards the problem. Yet when I took a closer look at the\nway the issue was framed, I noticed the discussion was clearly meant to\nfocus my attention on a specific aspect of this complex issue.
\nIn the end, Obama's solution offers a narrow approach to the larger\nproblem. The proposed solution? Prescribing more synthetic opiates. Yes,\nI'm afraid this new war on drugs involves drugs and more drugs.\nMeanwhile, those suffering from chronic pain are left without effective\nremedies, despite the fact that a safe, natural and effective treatment\nfor chronic pain already exists. Why is the Obama Administration not\nreclassifying cannabis as part of the solution, when it is documented to\nhave helped thousands of\npeople,\nwithout the debilitating side effects and impaired quality of life that\ncomes with prescription opiate use?
\nThe facts on opioid addiction
\nHow did so many Americans become addicted to opiates? The answer boils\ndown to pain relief: These people were in pain, and they sought relief\nfrom a doctor. Heroin grabs a lot of sensational headlines, but it is\nnot the greatest part of substance abuse. According the American\nSociety of Addiction\nMedicine,\nof the 21.5 million Americans who faced substance abuse and addiction in\n2014, only 586,000 used heroin. About 1.9 million Americans were\naddicted to prescription drugs. Four in five heroin users got their\nstart using prescription painkillers, and they only turned to street\ndrugs when they could no longer obtain prescription drugs.
\nIn 2012, doctors wrote 259 million prescriptions for opiates, enough to\ngive each American a bottle of narcotics. It comes as no surprise to me\nto learn people are now dying in record numbers from unintentional\noverdoses. This number has spiraled steadily upward since 1999; in 2014\nthere were 47,055 drug overdose deaths in the United States due to\nprescription opioids.
\nTreating pain with more pain
\nPresident Obama released his first National Drug Control Strategy in\n2010, which emphasized the need for action to address opioid misuse and\noverdose, while also promising that individuals with pain would receive\nsafe, effective treatment. While the new CDC prescribing\nguidelines do\nrecommend limiting and monitoring opiate prescriptions, they are unclear\nabout the effective, proven solutions for patients suffering from\nchronic pain.
\nMonitoring, limiting and controlling prescription opiates may help\nprevent overdoses and future abuse, but it begs a few questions about\nwhat the problem really is. The biggest initiatives circulated by the\nadministration ignore the scope of the problem entirely and promote\nother synthetic drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine.
\nBuprenorphine, approved in 2002, is similar to methadone, but it can be\nprescribed privately in a doctor's office. One key measure to the\nadministration's approach to the opiate epidemic is the mandate to\ndouble buprenorphine prescriptions.
\nA new class of addict
\nAccording to their proponents, these drugs work to ease and mediate\nopiate addiction by providing a less dangerous alternative once a user\nis already ensnared in the opiate trap. In reality, though, methadone\nand buprenorphine are still dangerous and additive drugs, and both can\nlead to abuse and\noverdose.\nSuch an approach seems more like a defense of our national prescription\ndrug habit than an attack on it.
\nPrescription opiates were never a good solution for chronic pain, since\nthey formed a recipe for addiction. While the medical community\nbelatedly embraces this insight, it is unclear which remedies doctors\nwill have to relieve pain and suffering. In the face of such a crisis,\nthe reclassification of marijuana might help millions of Americans who\ncope with chronic\npain,\nbut this solution is conspicuously absent from the solution. I ask you,\nWhy isn't this natural plant, known to be non-addictive and not linked\nto a single\ndeath,\npart of the conversation?
\nPatient survey
\nHelloMD conducted a survey of medical marijuana\npatients in\nJanuary 2016, as one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of\nits kind. Chronic pain topped the list of conditions from which people\nsought relief, and 84 percent of respondents strongly agreed that\nmedical marijuana effectively treated their symptom. In addition to\nrelief from their primary condition, respondents named many beneficial\nside-effects, including improved mental state, relaxation and better\nsleep patterns. There were few to no reports of negative consequences.
\nAccording to the National Institute on\nHealth,\npain impacts more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer\ntogether, and it is a top reason why people access the health care\nsystem. Pain is a leading cause of disability and has a major impacts on\nproductivity and quality of life.
\nFurthermore, pain demands action. If people are unable to access\neffective treatment for their pain, they may turn to heroin and other\nillegal substances to find relief, and we may witness an even worse\nepidemic.
\nHow federal funds should be used
\nThe federal government is asking Congress for $1.1 billion in funds to\nfight the opiate epidemic. This money could help doctors prescribe\nmarijuana to sufferers of chronic pain, and it could support growers and\nlabs and help produce an important body of research on this natural\nremedy.
\nInstead, most of the new funding is earmarked to \"expand access to\nmedication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders.\" I'm sure this\nfunding will effectively function as a subsidy to the same\npharmaceutical interests that produced the drugs that created this\nepidemic in the first place.
\nDoes this circular solution really make sense?
\n","timeToRead":5},"headerYoutubeVideo":null,"autoplayHeaderYoutubeVideo":null},"allArticle":{"nodes":[{"id":"Article_2371-markdown","title":"New Research Proves Marijuana Effectively Controls Chronic Pain 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