Tennessee's drug overdose epidemic suggests a need to legalize marijuana

Mitchell Koch

The number of people dying in Tennessee from drug overdoses has risen dramatically in the past 15 years, and some experts say one reason could be Tennessee’s strict laws on marijuana.

More than 1,400 people died from drug overdoses in the state in 2015, almost four times more than the amount in 2000, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. The numbers include both legal and illegal drugs because the department does not separate the two types.

Tyler Marshall, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – Memphis Chapter, said the best way to combat this alarming death rate in the state is to reform the state’s marijuana policy.

“The overdose situation is getting worse faster than policy can curtail it,” Marshall said. “We’re not moving quickly enough. Naloxone (an opioid reversal rescue drug) is not being expanded fast enough, regulations on opioid prescriptions are not being implemented quick enough, and alternative pain medicines like marijuana and non-pharmacological therapies are not being utilized.”

With neighboring Arkansas legalizing medical marijuana this past election, Tennessee now has a test group to see how legalization would play out in the Bible Belt state. However, Marshall said Tennessee still has a long road to legalization.

“Marijuana policy has long been associated with Democrats,” Marshall said. “The Tennessee legislature just became loaded with Republicans so I think (legalization) is going to be a tough fight, but not out of the realm of possibility. Libertarians typically support legalization, and it seems that the issue is slowly becoming more bipartisan. I’m hopeful, but it will not be easy.”

Opioids, the current go-to painkilling drug, are medications that relieve pain by way of the chemical opium, made from the white liquid of the poppy plant, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The opium substance directly composes codeine, morphine and heroin and combines with other substances to compose the painkiller drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone.

Opioid substances are far more dangerous than marijuana for one major reason, said Marshall, who is a neuroscience graduate from Rhodes College and currently pursuing a doctorate’s degree in public health at the University of Memphis. The active ingredient in marijuana that produces the “high” users feel, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, does not bind to the area of the brain that controls breathing and cardiovascular functions like other drugs.

“Drugs like alcohol, opioids and anxiolytics bind to this area and can shut it off in high doses or when mixed with each other,” Marshall said. “THC in extremely high doses can trigger adverse psychiatric reactions or anxiety, but it cannot kill someone.”

Kathryn Kaplan, a spokesperson from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an organization that studies the science behind drug use and addiction and presents its research to the public, backed up Marshall’s claim and said opioid addiction comes more from developing an unhealthy tolerance.

“People can develop tolerance to opioid medications, meaning they need to take more to get the same effect,” Kaplan said. “This is not the same as dependence, which is where a person feels withdrawal symptoms when they stop taking the drug, and addiction, where the person compulsively seeks out the drug regardless of negative consequences.”

Marshall also said opponents to marijuana legalization are largely just ignoring the scientific facts, and scientists like himself are trying to stop criminalizing addicts and instead offer treatment based on “evidence and data.”

“Legalization is not something to fear and does not mean that drug addiction or drug use is OK or encouraged,” Marshall said. “Legalization encourages attacking this problem in a more ethical and scientifically informed way.”

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization working to reform drug policies in the U.S., met in a U.S. Senate committee meeting to explain the main reason marijuana should be medically legal. He explained that states with easy access to medical marijuana have much lower rates of drug prescriptions and thus, a lower level of overdoses.

“(This data) is suggesting that when you are treating pain, opioids are not the only thing, marijuana can also play a positive role,” Nadelmann said to the committee led by Delaware Senator Tom Carper. “And for certain types of pain, marijuana may be a more effective way of dealing with pain than are opiates and a far less dangerous way.”

Data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment echoes what Nadelmann said. Colorado’s count of drug overdoses has increased slightly since 2000, keeping pace with the rest of the country, but the rate of overdose deaths in Colorado is significantly lower than in Tennessee.

The two states do differ in populations, with Tennessee having about 6.6 million residents, and Colorado having about 5.4 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, since the introduction of recreationally legal marijuana in 2012, the number of drug overdose deaths in Colorado has remained almost constant, while Tennessee has been exponentially increasing.

Much of the country’s addiction to drugs can be halted, according to Kathleen M. Carroll, professor of psychiatry at Yale University’s School of Medicine, but it will need some extreme effort.

“We need to stop throwing billions and billions of dollars into useless treatments that don’t work and concentrate on providing less expensive, evidence-based therapies to more people,” Carroll, who is studying drug addiction and treatment, said.

Nadelmann said the states where medical marijuana is not legalized are just spending more money than they should be. And just like with the abolition of alcohol prohibition, that money could be invested into other state departments that will move the society forward, like education.

“I don’t see any evidence that marijuana laws are preventing young people from getting it, or any evidence that they’re preventing older people from getting it,” Nadelmann said. “All I see is evidence that it’s putting a lot of people in jail and costing the government a lot of money.”