A newly published study found that among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.
“Participants reporting daily cannabis use exhibited higher rates of cessation compared to less frequent users or non-users,” says the report, published last week in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.
When results were split by sex, researchers observed that “daily cannabis use was significantly associated with increased rates of opioid cessation among males.” Those differences “suggest potential differences in cannabis use behavior and effects,” the paper says, and underscores the need for further research.
The report was authored by an eight-person research team from the British Columbia Centre on Substance Abuse as well as the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.
Between June 2014 and May 2022, the team examined data from 1,242 people who used drugs (PWUD) while also living with chronic pain. Of those, 764 experienced “a cessation event.”
Daily cannabis use, it says, “was positively associated with opioid cessation.”
“Our findings add to the growing evidence supporting the potential benefits of cannabis use among PWUD, underlining the need for further research,” authors wrote.
Indeed, a growing body of research to date has examined the associations between cannabis reform and opioids, often finding reductions in opioid use in areas that legalize marijuana for medical or adult use.
A recent federally funded study in the U.S., for example, found an association between state-level marijuana legalization and reduced prescriptions for opioid pain medications among commercially insured adults—indicating a possible substitution effect where patients are choosing to use cannabis instead of prescription drugs to treat pain.
That research, which was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, looked at national records of opioid prescription fills as well as prescribing of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and other pain medications. Analysis showed that prescription opioid fills dropped following legalization in U.S. while prescribing of non-opioid pain medications saw “marginally significant increases.”
A study published late last year, for example, found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.
Other recent research also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”
“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” that report said. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”
“Further, this effect increases with earlier implementation of [recreational marijuana legalization],” it added, “indicating this relationship is relatively consistent over time.”
Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that “cannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,” it said.
Yet another study, published in 2023, linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids and other prescription medications. And another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) last February, found that chronic pain patients who received medical marijuana for longer than a month saw significant reductions in prescribed opioids.
About one in three chronic pain patients reported using cannabis as a treatment option, according to a 2023 AMA-published report. Most of that group said they used cannabis as a substitute for other pain medications, including opioids.
Other research published that year found that letting people buy CBD legally significantly reduced opioid prescription rates, leading to 6.6 percent to 8.1 percent fewer opioid prescriptions.
A 2022 research paper that analyzed Medicaid data on prescription drugs, meanwhile, found that legalizing marijuana for adult use was associated with “significant reductions” in the use of prescription drugs for the treatment of multiple conditions.
A 2023 report linked state-level medical marijuana legalization to reduced opioid payouts to doctors—another datapoint suggesting that patients use cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs when given legal access.
Researchers in another study, published last year, looked at opioid prescription and mortality rates in Oregon, finding that nearby access to retail marijuana moderately reduced opioid prescriptions, though they observed no corresponding drop in opioid-related deaths.
Other recent research also indicates that cannabis may be an effective substitute for opioids in terms of pain management.
A report published recently in the journal BMJ Open, for instance, compared medical marijuana and opioids for chronic non-cancer pain and found that cannabis “may be similarly effective and result in fewer discontinuations than opioids,” potentially offering comparable relief with a lower likelihood of adverse effects.
Separate research published found that more than half (57 percent) of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain said cannabis was more effective than other analgesic medications, while 40 percent reported reducing their use of other painkillers since they began using marijuana.
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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
A newly published study found that among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men. “Participants reporting daily cannabis use exhibited higher rates of cessation compared to less frequent users or non-users,” says the report, published last week in the Read More
