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State legal guidelines permitting medical hashish use didn’t scale back prescriptions for opioids or different therapies for power, non-cancer ache, in accordance with a coverage evaluation by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.
Dr. Beth McGinty, chief of the Division of Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medicine, used a research design that emulates a medical trial to investigate the consequences of medical hashish legal guidelines on therapy for individuals with power non-cancer ache. The outcomes, revealed July 4 in Annals of Internal Medicine, problem the outcomes of earlier research that recommended medical hashish legal guidelines may scale back opioid prescribing, serving to curb the continued opioid disaster within the United States.
“Some analysis means that maybe medical hashish legal guidelines scale back opioid prescribing for power non-cancer ache as a result of some individuals might substitute hashish,” mentioned Dr. McGinty, who was recruited as a professor of inhabitants well being sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We discovered no results of those legal guidelines on opioid prescribing or any forms of therapy for power non-cancer ache that we checked out.”
Public well being authorities and policymakers hoping to stem the continued opioid overdose disaster within the United States have taken numerous approaches, together with recommending extra even handed opioid prescribing. Some have recommended permitting medical hashish to offer sufferers with power non-cancer ache an possibility with a decrease threat of overdose. But many questions stay about this strategy.
The science may be very a lot nonetheless evolving on how efficient hashish is for power non-cancer ache.”
Dr. Beth McGinty, Chief of the Division of Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medicine
Questions stay about how efficient hashish is at treating power non most cancers ache in contrast with evidence-backed therapies, together with non-opioid ache medicines and bodily remedy.
To perceive how medical hashish legal guidelines have an effect on power non-cancer ache therapy, Dr. McGinty and her colleagues used business insurance coverage claims information to investigate opioid prescribing, non-opioid ache medicine prescribing, and supply of power non-cancer ache procedures like bodily remedy in 12 states with medical hashish legal guidelines and 17 states with out such legal guidelines. The staff used statistical changes to appropriate for any pre-law variations between ache therapy outcomes in medical hashish states and their comparability states.
“It’s an observational research, however we set it up in a approach that mimics a medical trial as carefully as potential,” she mentioned.
The research didn’t discover a important affect on the variety of sufferers with power non-cancer ache receiving any prescription opioid, any non-opioid prescription ache medicine, or on procedures used to alleviate power ache. Dr. McGinty mentioned the outcomes have been constant throughout states with medical hashish legal guidelines.
“Medical hashish legal guidelines don’t seem like related to modifications within the prescription opioid or different non-cannabis, non-opioid therapies for power non-cancer ache,” she mentioned.
Dr. McGinty acknowledged that the research has restricted statistical energy, partly as a result of there are solely 50 states, a limitation in any research of the consequences of state insurance policies. Investigators might additionally study the consequences of medical hashish legal guidelines on power ache therapy utilizing an information supply that captures medical hashish use along with information on different power ache therapies, for instance state prescription drug monitoring applications which are in some circumstances beginning to embrace medical hashish in addition to opioid prescriptions.
In the meantime, the research might present useful data for policymakers seeking to perceive how medical hashish legal guidelines affect prescribing of prescription opioids and supply of different therapies for power non-cancer ache.
“Our research findings counsel that medical hashish legal guidelines don’t considerably scale back opioid prescribing,” Dr. McGinty mentioned. “Policymakers making an attempt to curb extra opioid prescribing and overdoses ought to concentrate on different methods.”
Source:
Journal reference:
McGinty, E. E., et al. (2023) Effects of U.S. State Medical Cannabis Laws on Treatment of Chronic Noncancer Pain. Annals of Internal Medicine. doi.org/10.7326/M23-0053.