An Ohio State University study of medical cannabis patients found a large majority agreed using marijuana reduced their use of prescription painkillers.
Around 3,500 individuals responded to the survey, who were recruited through the university’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center network and via a newsletter distributed to Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program patients and
caregivers.
The statements posed in the survey were quite straightforward:
- Using marijuana has reduced my need to use prescription painkillers.
- Using marijuana has reduced my use of other illegal drugs.
Respondents were asked to indicate to what extent they agreed with those statements.
77.55% agreed marijuana use reduced their need to use prescription painkillers, while only about 1.7% disagreed. Furthermore, 26.78% of respondents agreed using marijuana reduced their need to use other illegal drugs, while only approximately 1.9% disagreed.
These results were consistent with findings from a couple of other studies noted. But there are others as well, including this study from CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy in relation to chronic pain.
“However, our study, and many previous studies like ours, suffer from the limitations of non-experimental designs,” state the researchers. “Interestingly, marijuana-related research may become easier to conduct if marijuana is rescheduled as recently proposed by the United States Department of Justice and others.”
The researchers also acknowledged marijuana use can have negative health impacts, therefore more research will be needed to determine its efficacy and safety against other treatments. And again, this is where rescheduling cannabis from Schedule I to III as recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services may help.
A preprint of the survey report, not yet peer-reviewed at the time of publishing, can be accessed here.
In 2016, Ohio became the 25th US state to legalize medicinal marijuana. As at the end of March 2024, there were 167,153 patients registered in the state out of a population (all ages) of 11.8 million. Currently there are 26 qualifying medical conditions covered under the program, including chronic and severe or intractable pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. The program allows medicines to be sold as oils, tinctures, edibles, patches or plant material from (currently) 124 dispensaries across the state.
Ohio has also legalized the recreational use of cannabis for adult-use consumers through a ballot measure voters passed in November last year.
