As opioid epidemic rages, CDC tells doctors: ignore marijuana
Faced with an FDA-manufactured opioid painkiller overdose epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control has revised its guidelines to avoid something possibly making the epidemic worse — the routine screening of opioid users for marijuana use.
Today, the CDC instructed doctors to stop routine testing of pain patients for marijuana use. The costly tests have dubious health benefits, high potential legal ramifications for the patient, and could actually increase overdose deaths.
Of major importance is that medical marijuana availability seems to cut painkiller overdose deaths by 25%, researchers have found, because cannabis allows pain patients to take less opioids or stop taking them altogether.
Cannabis — an alternative to pills for some patients — also has no lethal overdose level, while painkiller overdoses kill about 19 Americans — per day.
California NORML reported this week that new CDC guidelines tell pain doctors to stop testing their patients for THC, the...
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