Motley Fool
Whether you realize it or not, legal marijuana is
really beginning to turn heads. In North America, cannabis research firm
ArcView estimates that growth in legal weed sales could average 28% per
year through 2021, pushing it nearly $25 billion annually. A big reason
for this dramatic rise in sales is the expected legalization of
recreational cannabis in Canada by this coming summer, marking the first
time in history a developed country has green-lighted adult-use pot.
Additionally,
at least within the United States, we've witnessed a marked shift in
how the public views marijuana. What was once a drug that just a quarter
of respondents wanted to see legalized (according to a 1995 Gallup
survey) is now a drug that almost two-thirds of respondents
would prefer to see legalized. Support for medicinal marijuana is even
higher, with the independent Quinnipiac University finding 94% support
for such an idea in an August 2017 poll. As a result, 30 states have
legalized cannabis in some capacity since 1996.
But
in spite of this progress, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug at the
federal level in the United States. It's deemed to be wholly illegal,
highly prone to abuse, and has no recognized medical benefits.
Is marijuana the key to fighting the opioid epidemic?
Yet, according to two newly published studies in JAMA Internal Medicine, medical and recreational pot may indeed offer a big benefit to the American public: a reduction in opioid use.
For
those unfamiliar, prescription opioid misuse and addiction is a growing
problem. Roughly 21% to 29% of patients prescribed opioids for chronic
pain misuse them, some 8% to 12% develop an opioid disorder, and
approximately 115 Americans die each day as a result of opioid-related
overdoses, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And
despite being a front-and-center issue, it's not getting any better. In
fact, opioid overdoses have been increasing by a double-digit percentage
in recent years. Though remedies have been discussed to combat this
rising rate of overdoses and abuse of prescription opioids, nothing
seems to have worked.
However, when
referencing prescription opioid data in states that have legalized
cannabis in some capacity, researchers in two separate studies (who just
so happened to have their findings published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the same day) discovered that access to legal marijuana reduced the number of opioid prescriptions.
Two studies, one similar result
The first study
-- conducted by a father-daughter team, David and Ashley Bradford,
along with two other researchers -- examined opioid prescription data
from Medicare Part D between 2010 and 2015.
According to their findings,
23.08 million daily doses of any opioid were dispensed per year in the
average state under Medicare Part D. However, in states that had
legalized cannabis in some capacity, opioid prescriptions written
dropped by 14%. This includes a 3.7-million-dose decline in states with
dispensaries of any form, and a 1.8-million-dose drop in states that
allowed homegrown cannabis for medical use.
However,
the authors are also quick to point out that marijuana use in select
states hasn't caused opioid use to go in reverse. The study suggests
it's been merely slowing the rise in the rate at which opioid
prescriptions have been written and used.
The other study,
conducted by Hefei Wen, Ph.D., and Jason Hockenberry, Ph.D., took a
similar path.
It examined opioid prescription data for Medicaid between
2011 and 2016. Medicaid generally covers working-age Americans, whereas
Medicare is primary for folks aged 65 and up. The results of this second
study showed a 5.88% reduction in opioid prescribing rates for states
that had medical marijuana laws, and a slightly higher 6.38% reduction
in prescribing rates for states with recreational cannabis laws on their
books.
However, both studies are very clear
that this is a correlation and not a concrete finding, which means that
it'll merit more research. Running additional studies could take years,
meaning we may not know for certain if cannabis offers a means to lessen
the opioid crisis for some time to come.
Furthermore,
there are concerns that legalizing weed across the U.S. could lead to
unforeseen consequences of its own. For example, it could coerce users
to try other dangerous (and illicit) drugs.
It also raises concerns
about driver safety, with cannabis use being shown to negatively impact
users behind the wheel.
Sessions digs in his heels
In
the interim, the cannabis industry probably isn't going to get very far
in the U.S. with Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the helm, and that's
bad news for investors.
Sessions has been very
clear about his feelings on all forms of cannabis, and he's been trying
hard to roll back or slow the expansion of pot in the United States. In
May 2017, he sent a letter to a few of his former congressional
colleagues requesting the repeal of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment,
which protects medical marijuana businesses from federal prosecution.
Though unsuccessful, Sessions did succeed in rescinding the Cole memo
in early January 2018, which opens the door for state-level prosecutors
to use their discretion in bringing charges against individuals and
businesses in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, even in states
that have legalized pot.
For what it's worth, Sessions has said that he believes medical marijuana isn't an adequate substitute
to fight the opioid crisis. Instead, he suggests that it's a cause (one
of many) that's led to the current crisis. While speaking before the
National Association of Attorneys General in March 2017, Sessions said:
In
other words, cannabis remains an extremely risky investment for U.S.
investors. We're potentially years away from knowing if marijuana offers
any real hope of lessening the opioid epidemic, and investing on hope
isn't exactly a good idea. The fact is that the federal government still
holds pot to be illegal, and at any time we could see a step-up in
enforcement with Sessions in charge. That's a game of chicken that this
investor wouldn't recommend you play.
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