Politics
Most New York Medical Marijuana Patients Say Cannabis Has Reduced Their Use Of Prescription Opioids And Other Drugs
More than 3 in 4 New York State medical marijuana patients say cannabis has allowed them to reduce their intake of prescription drugs, according to a new report from the state’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM). That includes 2 in 3 (66 percent) who report that marijuana has specifically “reduced their need for prescription opioids for pain reduction.”
Those are among a bevy of findings in the new OCM report, which draws on surveys sent last year to current or past medical marijuana patients as well as to medical providers who recommend it. The 40-page document includes information on qualifying conditions, frequency of use, product types and patient demographics. And it offers a number of recommendations aimed at improving the state’s medical cannabis system.
The report concludes that—despite the need to address some challenges facing New York’s medical marijuana program— participants are generally satisfied with how things have been going. Among patients, 79 percent said they intended to renew their certifications after they expire, while 86 percent said they’d recommend New York’s medical cannabis program to a friend or family member.
The system could be improved, the report says, by reducing costs to patients and caretakers, making medical marijuana products easier to access, improving education for health care workers and dispensary staff, easing opportunities for clinical research and addressing health care disparities related to race, income and other factors.
🌱The Office solicited feedback on the Medical Cannabis Program from certified practitioners and registered patients.
From identifying top practitioner practices to patient income participation and more, here's what they had to say.
Read the full report: https://t.co/M5aqthQnIY pic.twitter.com/swaJnuy6Tm
— NYS Office of Cannabis Management (@nys_cannabis) July 16, 2024
Specifically, OCM lays out 11 recommendations that could help address some of the challenges:
- Extending medical cannabis patient certifications from 1 year to 2 years.
- Repealing of the tax on medical cannabis.
- Allowing patients and their designated caregivers to possess either the Penal Law limits (3 ounces of cannabis and 24 grams of concentrate) or a 60-day supply of medical cannabis, whichever is greater.
- Removing the 2-hour course requirement for providers and instead allowing the Board to determine the appropriate training and education necessary for providers to certify patients.
- Enacting patient reciprocity, to allow out of state visitors who are medical cannabis patients to purchase products from a NYS medical cannabis dispensary.
- Allowing certified patients and designated caregivers 18 years of age and older to cultivate medical cannabis for the patient’s personal use.
- Requiring coursework on the endocannabinoid system and medical cannabis at NYS higher education institutions, including medical schools.
- Developing policies to allow faculty at NYS higher education institutions, including medical schools, to conduct cannabis research with a NYS Cannabis Research License.
- Supporting insurance companies opting to cover medical cannabis products.
- Legislative action to implement Continuing Medical Education (CME) requirements on medical cannabis, or at a minimum the Endocannabinoid System, for all licensed providers in NYS.
- Continuing the requirement that onsite pharmacists be required at all medical cannabis dispensaries.
In addition to looking at possible changes to the system, the new report also assesses patient trends, demographics and outcomes.
Office of Cannabis Management
Treating pain with medical marijuana is especially common in New York’s program, as it is in most other states that allow legal access. Among patients who took the survey, pain was the most commonly identified qualifying condition for medical marijuana—specifically, “opioid alternative for pain that degrades health and functional capability.” That condition comprises about 16 percent of patients enrolled in the program.
Another 51 percent of patients are certified for a condition under the category of “other,” the report says, with approximately 80 percent of patients within that category “having chronic pain alongside another condition.”
“This highlights the widespread use of cannabis for managing pain,” it says.
Healthcare providers, for their part, said they believed cannabis was beneficial for pain patients.
“Certifying providers found medical cannabis to be particularly helpful (95%) in reducing or treating pain,” OCM said. “Certifying providers also indicated medical cannabis being helpful in the improvement of their patients’ overall physical functioning (84%) and energy level (60%).”
Office of Cannabis Management
“This support increased when asked specifically about the benefit for patients who suffer from chronic debilitating conditions,” the report notes, “with over 93% of providers indicating they agree that cannabis is helpful for patients with chronic conditions.”
And while nearly a quarter (26 percent) of providers agreed that cannabis can have serious mental health risks, more than three quarters (78 percent) agreed that medical marijuana can also have significant mental health benefits.
Overall, 84 percent of providers said medical cannabis benefits overall physical functioning. In terms of specific ailments, providers most frequently said marijuana was very or somewhat helpful for managing pain, insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting and muscle spasms. Meanwhile, less than half of surveyed providers said medical marijuana was very or somewhat helpful for tics or weight loss.
Office of Cannabis Management
The new report comes alongside a recent review of Ohio’s medical marijuana program that was conducted by researchers at Ohio State University law school’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. Similar to trends observed in New York, that study found that a large majority of medical marijuana patients reported reducing their use of prescription opioid painkillers as well as other, illicit drugs.
That survey, sent to state medical marijuana patients and caregivers through the Ohio Department of Commerce as well as shared online through social media, found that 77.5 percent agreed that marijuana reduced their need to use prescription painkillers. As for illicit drugs, 26.8 percent of respondents reported a diminished need to use.
Only small percentages of people disagreed that marijuana reduced their need to use prescription painkillers (1.7 percent) or illegal drugs (1.9 percent).
The findings of both studies reinforce the idea of a substitution effect whereby patients opt for cannabis instead of opioids or other drugs to treat pain, though nuances of the effect are still poorly understood.
Separate research published earlier this year that looked at opioid prescription and mortality rates in Oregon, for instance, found that nearby access to retail marijuana moderately reduced opioid prescriptions, though there was no corresponding drop in opioid-related deaths.
Another report published recently in the journal BMJ Open 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.
And federally funded study published in May concluded that even some cannabis terpenes may have pain-relieving effects. That research found that an injected dose of the compounds produced a “roughly equal” reduction in pain markers in mice when compared to a smaller dose of morphine. Terpenes also appeared to enhance the efficacy of morphine in mice when the two drugs were given in combination.
Another study, published late last year, found that marijuana and opioids were “equally efficacious” at mitigating pain intensity, but cannabis also provided more “holistic” relief, such as by improving sleep, focus and emotional wellbeing.
The same month, research published in the Journal of Dental Research found that pure CBD could alleviate acute dental pain about as well as an opioid formula commonly used in dentistry.
A study published last summer linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids and other prescription medications. Another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 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 another AMA-published report last year. Most of that group said they used cannabis as a substitute for other pain medications, including opioids.
Other research published last 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.
Meanwhile in New York, state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would allow people in the state to bring legal actions against entities that violate state marijuana laws, potentially empowering ordinary individuals to sue unlicensed cannabis sellers or licensees skirting state law.
A news report earlier this year found that despite state officials levying more than $25 million in fines against unlicensed retailers for selling cannabis products since last year, only a tiny fraction of those fines had been collected by either the New York Tax Department or the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).
The governor also said recently the state’s escalated enforcement actions against illicit marijuana shops is resulting in a significant increase in legal sales at licensed retailers.
Some state lawmakers are also calling for an investigation of New York’s cannabis social equity fund after an exposé of “predatory deals” was published by local media outlet THE CITY.
