Two new studies show how marijuana can help fight the opioid epidemic - The Washington Post

 

Medical marijuana could help solve the opioid epidemic, Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells Jeff Sessions - CNN

 

Finally, when someone is addicted to opioids, they are often described as having a brain disease. Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai in New York City, showed me what this looks like in autopsy specimens of those who had overdosed on opioids. Within the prefrontal cortex of the brain, she found damage to the glutamatergic system, which makes it difficult for neural signals to be transmitted. This is an area of the brain responsible for judgment, decision-making, learning and memory.

Hurd told me that when an individual's brain is "fundamentally changed" and diseased in this manner, they lose the ability to regulate opioid consumption, unable to quit despite their best efforts -- unable to "just say no."

It is no surprise, then, that abstinence-only programs have pitiful results when it comes to opioid addiction. Even the current gold standard of medication-assisted treatment, which is far more effective, still relies on less-addictive opioids such as methadone and buprenorphine. That continued opioid use, Hurd worries, can cause ongoing disruption to the glutamatergic system, never allowing the brain to fully heal. It may help explain the tragic tales of those who succeed in stopping opioids for a short time, only to relapse again and again.

 

This is precisely why Hurd started to look to other substances to help and settled on nonpsychoactive cannabidiol or CBD, one of the primary components in cannabis. Hurd and her team discovered that CBD actually helped "restructure and normalize" the brain at the "cellular level, at the molecular level." It was CBD that healed the glutamatergic system and improved the workings of the brain's frontal lobes.

 

Does this new research help make a push for the use of medical marijuana in the opioid crisis?

I think it can help with problem. I don't think there is any one magic bullet to solve the issue or if it's even able to be completely solved. I don't know of any vice that disappears.

I think that there are two kinds of people who end up with heroin addiction. First those who for reasons of pain started out on strong painkillers and became addicted to them, and then those who are inclined to drink, smoke, snort, and eventually shoot anything that comes their way because of their partying mentality.

 

A few years ago on a couple of occasions I was prescribed some strong painkillers after a couple of serious operations, and while I definitely needed them for a few days following surgery, for fear of getting hooked on them, I quickly went to lesser type pain relievers to get through the remainder of the healing process.

 

Of the 30 tablets of the first bottle I probably took under 10 of them and have already disposed of the rest, and only used a few of the 2nd bottle, and have hung on to it in case I desperately ever needed them, yet it's really about time to dispose of them as well.

 

I feel lucky to not have needed them for more than a few days during recovery, and shudder to think what might've happened if I had had to take them for longer.

 

While there was a time in my life where I smoked pot pretty regularly, about 10 years ago I stopped and have only dabbled in it on very rare occasions since.

 

When I did stop I didn't experience any type of physical withdrawal, but somewhat of a mental withdrawal from it once being a daily behavioral habit, but in truth that quickly subsided.

 

While I'm not preoccupied with getting high so much anymore, I definitely think that it should be available, and especially for people trying to stop their opioid habit. I'm not sure if it's ultimately the answer, but at least it's a much lesser damaging non-addictive substance to help sustain someone if they are trying like hell to recover from something like a heroin addiction.

 

Just like alcohol I'm not really comfortable with the idea of everyone driving around stoned, but I would rather someone be high and driving than being junked up on heroin.

 

I don't know about everyone else and their experience, but living in Covington I can't go anywhere either in Covington, Newport, or downtown Cincy without smelling pot somewhere.

 

Sure this is nothing new, but it's really amazing to me now just how much more of it I smell than ever before, so much like the general public is getting a jump start on it being legal, and are collectively making a statement that they're going to smoke it freely wherever they go come hell or high water.

 

Every time I pull into Kroger, Dollar Tree, etc... I smell it. Every time I'm shopping at Kroger I smell it on other customers. Honestly if the police wanted to bust smokers they'd have a field day, but from what I can tell they're purposely ignoring it.

 

Having driven on it before I know that experienced pot smokers can manage it, but still it's just not a real good idea. You really want drivers on the road to be completely alert, and when you're high, though it's not impossible to concentrate on it, it really can impair you from being 100% responsible 100% of the time. Even when not high it can only take one false move to run into trouble, so you really don't want take anymore chances than you should.

 

All in all I definitely think that it should be available for people trying to recover from a far worse addition, yet we'd be fooling ourselves to not realize that in the very near future we're going to have more and more people driving around stoned if the way things are now are any indication.

I think opioid addiction is far more complicated than that.

I think opioid addiction is far more complicated than that.

 

I agree. But, by the same token, I will work off a personal anecdote. A friend of mine has managed to drag himself out of the deepest, darkest pit of smack addiction, with a side alcohol addiction to boot. He doesn't drink anymore and has stayed completely clean for more than a year, with his only current vice being weed. Seems to work for him.

I agree. But, by the same token, I will work off a personal anecdote. A friend of mine has managed to drag himself out of the deepest, darkest pit of smack addiction, with a side alcohol addiction to boot. He doesn't drink anymore and has stayed completely clean for more than a year, with his only current vice being weed. Seems to work for him.

 

Glad to hear that. I would bet that 90% of the mentally ill people we see smoke MJ. They all say it helps calm them and helps with voices. Personally, I think it should be legal. That being said, heroin addiction is a whole different thing. It seems too easy to think that using MJ will help people get off of it. I hope it is true! That would be great! I think I have just become too cynical in my old age to believe it could be that easy.

Edited April 30, 20188 yr by Runcible Owl