A study by the University of New Mexico has found that medicinal hemp may reduce the use of sure dangerous prescription medicine drug such as opioids . The research will be published in the Journal of American Medical Directors Association .

In 2015 , more than 33,000 people in the US conk from opioid use , which includes everything from prescription botheration killers to street diacetylmorphine . From 2000 to 2015 , that number was half a million citizenry .

So in thisstudy , the team calculate at ways to reduce those figures . They studied 83 chronic pain patient role who had enrolled in the New Mexico Medical Cannabis Program ( MCP ) from April 2010 to October 2015 . They compared these with 42 patient who were not imply in the computer programme , but instead were on the Prescription Monitoring Program .

From the cannabis group , they found that 34 percentage ( 28 people ) stopped the use of prescription medicine medications such as opioids in the last six calendar month of the five - twelvemonth catamenia . In the equivalence group , just one affected role did the same . There did n’t seem to be   trends in the data come to to age and grammatical gender .

“ Our current opioid epidemic is the lead preventable anatomy of last in the United States , killing more mass than car accidents and gun violence , ” said Miguel Vigil , the survey ’s senior author , in astatement . “ No one has ever die from smoking too much cannabis . ”

( We had to twofold check , but that does indeedseem to be true . )

The author of the study therefore suggest that platform like the New Mexico MCP could help boil down the use of prescription medicine drug . While there is a danger it could increase use of goods and services of some prescription drug as a side effect of cannabis use , if it ’s more effective than prescription drug , then it could also conduct to a decrease .

This follows up on previous research that set up that cannabis can be a suitable choice to prescription drug pain medical specialty . In June this year , a study found that93 percentof patients would favour cannabis over opioids to grapple their pain .

“ Cannabis can be an in effect treatment for pain , greatly trim down the prospect of dependence , and reject the risk of fatal overdose compared to opioid - based medications , ” those researchers , led by the University of California , Berkeley , wrote in theirstudy .   “ Medical cannabis patient report that cannabis is just as effective , if not more , than opioid - found medicine for pain . ”