Page 38 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)
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ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE NATURAL HEALING
In states where medical marijuana is legal, doctors write fewer prescriptions for opioid pain medications.
2016 report in the journal Health Affairs, W. David had decreased for most from around an 8 out of 10
Bradford, the Busbee Chair in Public Policy in the to a 4. At six months, about 18% of the people in the
Department of Public Administration and Policy at study either had stopped taking painkillers or had
the University of Georgia, and his co-researcher and reduced their dose.
daughter Ashley C. Bradford looked at data on pre- The researchers write that “the therapeutic use of
scriptions filled by Medicare enrollees from 2010 cannabis is safe and efficacious in the elderly popu-
to 2013 and found that older people who qualified lation.” There were only a small number of reported
for Medicare were, where appropriate, making use side effects, and all were minor, including dizziness
of medical pot. Not only that, they also found that and dry mouth. “What we hope people take away
when states legalized medical marijuana, prescrip- from this is that when marijuana becomes available as
tions dropped significantly for painkillers and other a clinical option, physicians and patients together are
drugs for which pot may be an alternative. reacting as if marijuana is medicine,” says Bradford.
There’s evidence suggesting that elderly people As for Devinsky, he plans to continue his re-
may benefit from the drug. A 2018 study by Israeli search. He argues that, as with any other drug, sci-
researchers published in the European Journal of In- entists need to fully understand marijuana’s efficacy
ternal Medicine found that using cannabis not only and safety. “We are getting to the bottom of it,” he
is safe for people over 65 but also may help symp- says. “But we are not there yet.”
toms of a variety of conditions. The study authors
followed 2,736 people ages 65 and older who were
using the drug to treat health problems (most were Excerpted from TIME’s
taking it for pain and cancer). The men and women Marijuana:
filled out questionnaires about their experience six The Medical Movement.
months after starting treatment: nearly 94% said Available at retailers
their condition had improved, and the level of pain and on amazon.com.
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