Doctors pioneer pot as an opioid substitute [View all]
Hundreds of opioid addicts are being treated with medical marijuana in Massachusetts, with advocates touting the new therapy as a life-changing alternative to a deadly epidemic and facing down critics who contend they are peddling junk science.
We have a statewide epidemic of opioid deaths, said Dr. Gary Witman of Canna Care Docs, a network of facilities that issue medicinal marijuana cards in seven states, including nine clinics in Massachusetts. As soon as we can get people off opioids to a nonaddicting substance and medicinal marijuana is nonaddicting I think it would dramatically impact the amount of opioid deaths.
Witman, who works out of a Fall River Canna Care clinic, says he has treated about 80 patients who were addicted to opioids, muscle relaxers or anti-anxiety medication with cannabis using a one-month tapering program. More than 75 percent of those patients stopped taking the harder drugs, Witman said.
Cannabis, Witman said, can treat the symptoms patients had been using opioids to manage, such as chronic pain or anxiety and treat them far more safely.
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