93% Of Patients Prefer Medical Marijuana To Opioids, Study Says

For years, medical marijuana was the only means of people to legally acquire a batch of cannabinoids. It was used by folks who suffered from actual medical problems and those who just preferred to get high alike. In a recent study, it would seem that those who fall into the former category actually prefer to use medical marijuana to even powerful synthetic drugs and opioids by an overwhelming majority.

The researchers who conducted the study published their paper on the Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. The team notes how up to 93 percent of the patients that they surveyed reported a preference for medical marijuana as opposed to the common opioids that they would have been given by doctors.

“This study can conclude that medical cannabis patients report successfully using cannabis along with or as a substitute for opioid-based pain medication,” the paper reads. “Patients in this study who are using cannabis and opioids report that they are able to use less opioids and that cannabis presents less unwanted side effects than their opioid-based medication.”

Keeping track of over 2,819 participants in a six-month period, the researchers found that only about 828 of the subjects used opioids during that time. The participants also noted how the use of medical marijuana had a strong influence on reducing their opioid intake, which has been known to come with dangerous side effects.

This means that if the choice was up to the participants, they would go with medical marijuana to treat their pain any day of the week, Futurism reports. This has some rather substantial implications within the medical industry if the study is corroborated and reinforced, particularly in the wake of the opioid abuse epidemic sweeping the US.

Overdose deaths caused by consumption of too much prescription drugs have been increasing at an alarming rate in the country. On the other hand, deaths caused by cannabis have been relatively negligible or nonexistent.