Tag Archives: opioids

WHY CANNABIS IS NOT A SOLUTION TO OPIOID CRISIS

Addiction weighs you down, so marijuana can’t solve the opioid problem

By Cassidy Webb

Many marijuana enthusiasts share a popular belief that marijuana is the solution to the opioid crisis. As a former opioid addict and as a person who has tried to substitute marijuana for opioids, I beg to differ. My personal experience demonstrates that marijuana is not an effective way to get people off of other drugs. If anything, it only prolongs the suffering of addicts who have the potential to get well.

In addition, I can attest from my own example that marijuana increases the likelihood of adolescents developing a substance use disorder. Continue reading WHY CANNABIS IS NOT A SOLUTION TO OPIOID CRISIS

We got opioids wrong, but marijuana is worse

By a parent from Colorado

I have spoken to 4 moms in the past 24 hours whose children have died of opioids or heroin overdoses. Each and every one of them started their addiction with marijuana.

Are all of you outraged about the 60 Minutes report on how the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government purposely allowed the opioids crisis to explode?

Well, so am I! It’s shameful!

Gummies in the shape of hearts and stars are still allowed, even though Colorado passed new rules to ban candies in the shape of animals.

Now wait until the marijuana industry comes to your state. They are worse. They make high potency products that have NEVER been tested or studied before. Their products come in deceptive forms to disguise use. They don’t have to list the harms, risks, doses or frequency.  They call smoked marijuana medication, and they are worse than the tobacco industry.  Budtenders act like pharmacists and doctors without the medical degree.  They advertise their products in our local newspaper. They market to our children because they know they need more and future users.

The Latest HIDTA Report

Now in Colorado, they are filling the media with lies since the latest Rocky Mountain HIDTA report came out.  It says that Colorado youth rank #1 in the nation for marijuana use. They are actually claiming that marijuana has decreased the opioid crisis!  If the opioid crisis has decreased, it is because the medical community is becoming more aware and are changing their practices.

What the marijuana industry doesn’t want you to know, is that they have a great relationship with the cartels. They trade their marijuana for the cartels’ heroin. Our opioid use is going down but our heroin use is skyrocketing! Marijuana alone is harmful enough but now the marijuana industry is saying marijuana is a cure for opioids addiction. What a total lie!

What about those 4 women whose children died? Their children tried to get off heroin by using marijuana! It doesn’t work.  These children died and these parents are speaking out, but who is listening!?

Editor’s Note: A year ago, Pueblo, Colorado, physicians explained the drug crisis in videos.

Read some of the other testimonies  submitted by our readers in Colorado:

The Dark Side of Marijuana

I wish we hadn’t moved here

My Son’s Psychiatric Surprise

Opioids kill One Way; Cannabis Kills in Another Way

By John Dossett, MD, South Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, originally published in Penn-Live on July 16, 2017, as one of the top five editorials of the week.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is reporting that between 30,000 and 40,000 Americans are dying each year from opioid overdoses. Most of these are not suicides but, are the consequences of people using “stuff” which is profoundly more potent than they imagined.  From our local communities, to the state, and federal government levels, we are alarmed and we should be.

Parallel to the “opioid epidemic” is the “cannabis epidemic” which is going unnoticed and unreported. We see weekly hype about so called “medical marijuana,” but, little about the tragic consequences of cannabis overdoses.

Why? One reason is that opioid overdoses kill and cannabis takes the lives of its victims in a less dramatic way.  Cannabis-induced psychosis robs the victims of their meaningful life.

The proverb says, “There are many ways to lose one’s life and dying is just one of them.”

The parallel to opioids is that the “weed” of today has been hybridized (genetically engineered) to be 5 – 6 times more potent than the weed of 20 years ago (4% THC compared to 19% THC).  In addition, the contemporary delivery systems (example- vaping) increase the amount of THC getting to the brain. These unexpectedly high “doses” of today may include manic psychosis and schizophrenia like symptoms. The victim didn’t understand what she/he was getting. What was expected to be a few hours of pleasure has become a life-changing psychosis.

I predict that our fascination with “medical marijuana” will only accelerate this tragic epidemic of THC-induced psychosis.

If there is to be a place for “medical marijuana,” give it to the FDA where it can be studied by legitimate scientists who are not funded by the producers, distributors and charlatan practitioners. Clearly, the profits are huge and the costs to human lives are huge.

There may be a few serious conditions in which a small amount of cannabis helps to relieve suffering. Example: End stage cancer. Responsible physicians will use it wisely and compassionately just as they do with opioids.

The tragic hidden problem is aided by a very small number of “charlatan physicians” who will sell their souls to the callous industry. For a fee and without being seen, cannabis users can receive a “certificate of need.” This document allows the user to go into a retail cannabis dispensary and purchase whatever he/she wants from a large inventory of cannabis products.
Said again, opioids kill by suppressing respiration. Cannabinoids ruin lives by inducing psychosis.  Both are tragic.

Dr. Dossett is a pediatrician in Hershey, Pennsylvania

Marijuana Can’t Treat the Opiate, Heroin Epidemic

Any marijuana use leads to less intelligence potential, less empathy for life, less motivation and poorer decision making.  A war on drugs is a protection and defense of our brains.   Governor Susana Martinez probably recognizes how Colorado’s marijuana problem leads to the drug epidemic and filters into New Mexico’s substance abuse issues.   Read about her veto in Part 1.

One young man who gave us a testimony explained how his marijuana use led directly to heroin addiction.

In Colorado, Dr. Libby Stuyt, addictions psychiatrist, traces a direct line from marijuana legalization to the heroin epidemic.    Colorado’s recent report on heroin has shown that the number of deaths from heroin overdose have doubled between 2011 and 2015.

In fact, Pueblo County, has suffered from heroin use and addiction more than any other Colorado county.  Pueblo, Denver and Boulder have the highest rates of youth marijuana use.   Southern Colorado is suffering the most from the heroin epidemic. Counties that have banned marijuana dispensaries have been affected the least by the heroin.

Misunderstanding of the Opioid and Heroin Epidemic

Since the government has clamped down on opiate prescriptions, more users have replaced the pain drugs with heroin.  Since the legalization of marijuana, Mexican cartels have replaced much of their marijuana with heroin.  Heroin is now cheaper and addicts find it easier to get heroin than prescription pills.

Politically there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the opioid epidemic. If it was initially caused by over prescribing of medications, that’s no longer primarily the case.   Seth Leibsohn wrote an insightful article on the subject last week. The abuse of opioid prescriptions acquired legitimately constitutes a small portion of the overdose problem, he said. *

A simple crackdown on prescriptions will not solve the problem, according to Maia Szalavitz.  Although Szalavitz misunderstands the  inherent danger in using marijuana,* she explains the underlying causes of substance abuse quite well.  Impulsive children are at high risk of becoming drug users, but so are some highly cautious and anxious young people.   Two thirds of people with opioid addictions have had severely traumatic childhoods, and the more exposure to trauma, the higher the risk.  We need to help abused, neglected, fragile and otherwise traumatized children before they turn to self-medication as teens.  On the other hand, we should also provide tools and teach coping skills to children who are impulsive, ADHD or anxious.   (Overmedicating children doesn’t allow them to develop the skills needed to transition into adulthood.)

Let’s Help People Get off ALL Drugs

Effective treatment for addictions is getting off all drugs, not going to other harmful, brain-altering substances.   “The goal in helping a loved one with a substance use problem is not to reduce their use. It is to stop drug use,” according to Sven-Olov Carlsson of Drug Policy Futures.  He gave the opening address at the World Federation of Drugs Conference in Vienna last year.  As Carlsson said, the current heroin epidemic proves that “harm reduction” is not saving lives.

No one sets out to become an addict.   Fortunately, more people and states are realizing the foolishness of allowing “medical” marijuana for intractable pain.  It opens up a Pandora’s Box of problems, as in California and elsewhere.

Addiction specialists estimate that one in five American adults is addicted to drugs or alcohol.  With such large numbers, there should be no “stigma” attached to addiction or treatment.  A new or revised health care act should maintain the provision to treat addiction.

Those who are addicted have a strong need to protect a secret.  Their brains have been hijacked and there isn’t a straight path back to previous functioning.

Optimum treatment requires a period of time when the person is not using any substance of addiction in order for the brain to heal.  During that time, the person needs to be able to learn new things. The lack of treatment resources which allows this to happen is a big barrier to recovery.   Marijuana cannot be used to treat this current drug epidemic.

___________________________________________________________________________*  Another recent article explains how doctors began to take pain seriously, treating it as a fifth vital sign.  Szalavitz based her 10% addiction rate for marijuana on the weaker pot of the ’70s and ’80s, not the pot of today.  She also disregarded teen users of pot.