In the current era, there is a
push towards individual states legalizing marijuana for medicinal use. At this
point, 16 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized it and there are
over 10 more states with it on the imminent horizon. Federally, it remains
illegal and a Schedule 1 narcotic.
One of the ubiquitous reasons for
legalizing medicinal marijuana is the debilitating condition of chronic pain.
This is the number one reason in every state that has it legalized for usage,
and in some states it is the overwhelming favorite. Why?
First of all, let us look at the
sheer numbers for chronic pain. The Institute of Medicine came out with a
recent study showing that over 100 million Americans (1/3 of the population)
suffers from some sort of chronic pain. The cost exceeds $500 billion dollars
annually between direct cost, lost work time, disability, etc. It's a mind
blowing statistic.
There are two well known types of
treatment for chronic pain that exist in the US - traditional and alternative.
Traditional includes those treatments that are mainstream, typically reimbursed
by insurance, and have significant peer reviewed research backing up their
usage. Also traditional treatments often have FDA approval for their use, but
not always.
Alternative treatments are those
that are not typically reimbursed by insurance, and may not have a lot of
research backing them up. This does not demean their potential efficacy for
chronic pain, especially when used in conjunction with traditional treatments.
It is simply a way of categorizing the two. Some alternative methods include
holistic, naturopathic, acupuncture, biofeedback, herbal, and some still
include chiropractic and massage in this category. This is changing as more
insurances reimburse for them along with more research being available.
Patients end up with chronic pain
for innumerable reasons. It could be a failed back surgery that only got rid of
20% of a patient's pain, or a condition such as peripheral neuropathy that has
no surgical answer. A patient may have scleroderma or rheumatoid arthritis,
that entail diffuse pain that may or may not be responsive to narcotic
medications.
One ubiquitous issue that is seen
with chronic pain is narcotics. Most patients, if they are legitimate hard
working individuals, despise taking narcotics. They hate having to take more to
get the same pain relief (tolerance), and want to be productive, pain free, and
able to stay away from a mind altering and addictive substance to do it.
It is not a bad thing to see such
a large number of chronic pain patients turning to an alternative method of
pain relief, medicinal marijuana. The only bad part about it is when
illegitimate patients start using it (think the 18 year old faking back pain to
get a medical marijuana card). The incidence of this happening is a very small
number of the total.
With the sheer numbers of
patients in the US with chronic pain, and the variety of reasons as to why
these patients got to that point, means the pool of applicants for medicinal
marijuana cards will be much deeper than the other reasons. Giving them an
option that is non-addictive, natural, and legal will open up an avenue of hope
and optimism than continuing the negativism of narcotic addiction and despair.
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