Marijuana Moment: Patients In New York’s Medical Marijuana Program Saw ‘Significantly Reduced’ Opioid Prescriptions, Federally Funded Study Shows

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A federally funded study published by the American Medical Association (AMA) is adding more evidence that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in chronic pain treatment.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine on Monday, looked at opioid prescribing trends among chronic pain patients who became involved in the New York’s medical cannabis program between 2018 and 2023.

“Medical cannabis is increasingly considered a substitute for prescription opioid medications for chronic pain, driven by the urgent need for opioid alternatives to combat the ongoing epidemic,” the authors noted.

To that end, their results showed that New York’s marijuana program “was associated with significantly reduced prescription opioid receipt.”

The 204 participants recruited for the research project—which was led by scientists at the Montefiore Medical Center, University of Arizona and City University of New York—were all prescribed opioids for pain management and were “newly certified for medical cannabis use.” Their cannabis and opioid use was monitored over the course of 18 months.

The study found that average opioid use significantly decreased in the months they incorporated marijuana into their treatment regiment. Compared to chronic pain patients who didn’t use cannabis, the marijuana patients reported 3.53 fewer morphine milligram equivalents (MME) in daily opioid use.

“Chronic pain and opioid addiction are two of the most pressing health challenges in the United States,” Deepika E. Slawek, M.D., M.S., the study’s lead author, said in a press release. “Our findings indicate that medical cannabis, when dispensed through a pharmacist-supervised system, can relieve chronic pain while also meaningfully reducing patients’ reliance on prescription opioids. Supervised use of medical cannabis could be an important tool in combatting the opioid crisis.”

The newly published paper itself says that “participation in NYS’s medical cannabis program was associated with reduced prescription opioid receipt during 18 months of prospective follow-up, accounting for unregulated cannabis use.”

“Our study was novel in that we prospectively studied medical cannabis provision in an exceptionally medicalized program with involvement of pharmacists and clinicians,” the the authors wrote, noting the utilization of data from New York’s prescription monitoring program.

“In this prospective, longitudinal cohort study, participation in NYSMCP as determined by pharmacist-reported days of medical cannabis dispensed was associated with a reduction in prescription opioid receipt,” the study says. “Our findings add to existing evidence that suggests that medical cannabis may be a substitute for prescription opioids in patients with chronic pain.”

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) financially supported the research.

This represents one of a continually growing number of examples of studies indicating that cannabis could provide relief for pain and an alternative to more addictive treatment options such as prescription opioids.

For example, another recent federally funded study from AMA found that legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational purposes is “significantly associated with reduced opioid use among patients diagnosed with cancer.”

A separate paper published in October similarly found that medical marijuana legalization is “associated with significant reductions in opioid prescribing.”

In August, meanwhile, Australian researchers published a study showing that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in pain management treatment.

Another study published earlier this year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that, among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.

Research published late last year also found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.

Other recent research also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” that report said. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”

Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that “cannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,” it said.

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