Now that cannabis is almost legal for medical use in Texas, I want to clarify my position on this. I am 100% for it. Now let me explain why. I hate relying on opioids for pain.
There is no argument available that can put the safety of opioids ahead of or even close to the protection of cannabis. Let’s get something straight here; I am not saying we should all smoke up for fun. This entire argument is for people with medical needs whose only choice is opioids.
I hope we can all unlearn the propaganda we were taught in school and on TV about how horrible cannabis or marijuana is. Opioids accounted for more than 70% of overdose deaths in 2019 alone. That means that because people were on opioids, more than 50,000 people died in 2019.
That is one year. I also checked we do not have numbers for people that die from cannabis because it doesn’t happen that much. When we talk about the addiction issues between opioids and cannabis, the difference is also essential.
While government statistics say that 30% of cannabis users develop a marijuana use disorder, this is not defined. Thus, the people that use cannabis for whatever reason then choose to continue using it for whatever reason they are deemed to have a disorder. So, if you took cannabis for pain and realized that you don’t need your anxiety or sleep drugs anymore, you choose to continue cannabis, and you have a marijuana disorder.
So, when you see that in the research, understand that the terms are purposefully vague. However, my point in this is that if we are going to choose a drug for anything and one has a death rate of 50k in a single year and the other we have to look hard to find a single death, I would like to move to the slightest chance of dying. Feel free to ask questions on this, as this is a soap box of mine, and I could have made this post a book.
The more involved I get with this, the more dumbfounded I am that we are not using it more. Full disclosure: TAG is working with a group of cannabis companies to bring medical cannabis on sublingual strips to Texas and the world. I do or will have a financial interest in cannabis if it becomes legal.
https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html