New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Questions 3 and 4:
-In what ways would legal recreational cannabis ‘compound our drug issue as a whole’?
-What is the science behind the relationship between cannabis and opiates?
Chief Cordeiro made one point in particular that I would like to wholeheartedly disagree with here. He claimed that in terms of recreational cannabis legalization in the city of New Bedford, “the timing is off by throwing more gasoline into the fire when we are already struggling with an addiction issue across the country.” He went on to say, “…the recreational-I believe is going to compound our drug issues as a whole.” Chief Cordeiro…you could not be more wrong about this.
Our drug issues are similar to those of our entire country. There is an ongoing national opiate epidemic; prescription and illegal. America comprises 5% of the world’s population while consuming 80% of the world’s opium. The American Academy of Pain Medicine notes that more than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, while simultaneously, the number of opiate prescriptions has nearly doubled in the past decade (http://drugabuse.com/legalizing-marijuana-decreases-fatal-opiate-overdoses/).
Many people are either unknowingly becoming opium addicts over months and years of increasing prescribed use, or they are taking the fast track by using street heroin at alarming rates. Regardless, it is clear to us as Americans that we have an opioid addiction problem, not to mention how many Americans are avid alcohol consumers.
Marijuana contains chemicals such as Delta 9-THC, CBD, CBN, and THCV. These chemicals all offer pain relieving effects, while offering a potential solution for those who suffer from chronic pain. A study in the JAMA International Medicine Journal found that cannabis laws “are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates” (http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1898878).
While the study is specifically related to medical cannabis, the ultimate point is that the science behind cannabis as a plant supports the notion that regulation would positively influence our current drug issues. Therefore, cannabis would certainly not “compound our drug issue as a whole” as Chief Cordeiro suggests. And so I ask Chief Cordeiro; how exactly would legal recreational cannabis compound our drug issues as a whole?
It is is evident that this country has a chronic pain issue. My argument is that cannabis offers much safer alternatives to dealing with these issues, to both those who are currently on opiates and those who are not. To quote a report from Integr8 Health founder and director Dr. Dustin Sulak,
“Can cannabis be used to replace opioids in chronic pain patients? It can certainly be used to enhance the effects of the opioids. A 2016 study surveyed 244 medical cannabis patients in Michigan, where medical cannabis use was associated with an overall 64 percent decrease in opioid use, a decrease in the number and side effects of other medications, and a 45 percent improvement in quality of life.
An Israeli study from the same year found that 44 percent of 176 opioid-using patients were able to discontinue opioid therapy entirely seven months after they began smoking cannabis or eating cannabis-infused cookies. (https://www.projectcbd.org/about/plant-medicine-vs-big-pharma/americas-opiate-crisis-how-medical-cannabis-can-help)”
In this report, Dr. Sulak goes on to state that abstaining from drugs simply does not work for everybody. Many people have legitimate health concerns that require taking something to mitigate the effects. The key is to focus on a term that Sulak refers to as “harm reduction”; replacing a harmful substance with a safer one. And so, the suggestion is that cannabis users, over time, require the same or less of a dose of prescribed opiates to deal with their pain. In fact, many cannabis users are able to kick opiates altogether with little time, as the health benefits of consuming cannabis as prescribed are numerous.
As if this was not convincing enough, a 2009 study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19444734) found that cannabis users were staying in treatment programs for more than twice as long as non cannabis users. Additionally, this study found that intensive behavioral therapy helped those who also used cannabis, but didn’t help non cannabis users. Cannabis has been shown to not only provide a more synergistic reduction of pain when taken with opiates, but to also treat symptoms of opiate withdrawal and prevent opiate tolerance building. These are hardly signs that cannabis legalization would make New Bedford’s drug problem worse, as Chief Cordeiro suggests. In fact, these are signs that cannabis would help this country’s drug problem.
