Medical Marijuana Is Not the Way out of America’s Opioid Crisis
The evidence for a widely held theory is thin
By I.K.
Weedmaps, an app that allows cannabis users to find sellers and review their wares, advertises its services through “Weedfacts” — marijuana-promoting factoids on bus stops and billboards in Washington, DC, where recreational use has been decriminalised. The signs proclaim that the legalisation of cannabis improves property values and decreases teenage use and crime. Harmless advertising perhaps. But some of its signs also allege that cannabis helps protect against opioid addiction, which is killing nearly 50,000 Americans a year. “Cannabis has been shown to reduce opioid deaths 25%”, says one poster. If that claim seems too good to be true, that is probably because it is.
The idea that cannabis legalisation — for both medical and recreational purposes — could seriously make a dent in America’s opioid crisis is common. This month, the state health commissioner of New York issued emergency regulations allowing anyone with an opioid addiction to obtain medical marijuana, calling it “a critical step in combating the deadly opioid epidemic affecting people across the state”. Illinois has introduced a similar programme. Yet the evidence behind the theory that legalising marijuana can help combat opioid…
