Well, a new study from the Department of
Health was released today about the role
of medical cannabis for chronic pain in
reducing prescription opioid dosages.
Joining us now is Doctor Laszlo Mechler,
who is the medical director at
Dent Neurological Institute.
Doctor, thanks for joining us tonight.
Thank you, doctor. Let me ask you,
the headline coming out of this study
is patients who get 30 days or more
of medical cannabis for chronic pain,
they see a 51% drop in prescription
opioid doses.
What's your reaction to that finding?
Well, I think this is a finding that
we've seen over the last decade.
In fact we have at the Dent
Institute 13,000 patients and we
have published multiple abstracts
and articles which interestingly
comes with the same statistics,
which is about 47 to 51% of patients
who use cannabis will decrease
the amount of opioid or narcotics
they use for various reasons,
in fact people who on opiates.
Come to us, say I wanna get off opioids.
Could you help me?
So this finding just reinforces what
we've known for not just years,
but decades.
So how does this study in particular
impact the future of medical cannabis?
Will we see an increase in usage
among healthcare providers?
Well, I think this just adds to the total
amount of articles that are being written.
Remember for many, many years,
92% of articles have always been looking
at the negativity of marijuana or cannabis.
Now articles are coming out looking at
the positivity, how it helps health.
So I think for physicians in the Community,
I think this is just an added information,
but I have to emphasize this study that.
His dog through the city of University
of New York was not a randomized study.
So still we have to go and do proactive
randomized studies looking at cannabis,
which then will be accepted
by the medical community.
But unfortunately, as we all know,
cannabis is a federally illegal drug.
And for this reason,
it's very difficult to do research.
Yeah. And what do you think that this
study does for the opioid epidemic?
That the country you still have and do
you think that this will maybe inspire
more research into medical cannabis
as a possible solution for patients
needing long term opioid treatment?
I think it uh, it raises the information
about the fact that there is another option.
In fact, there are other studies that have
shown that about 30 to 40% of people who
use medical marijuana use it for paid.
So I think this information is not only
important for the medical doctors but also
for patients and when patients are very
fearful of the use of opioids and with
the tremendous increase in the deaths
from fentanyl and other opioids in the
United States over the last three years,
it has over has doubled.
And it's getting to the point where we triple
the amount of deaths in the United States.
We're talking about over 100,000
people dying from opioid overdose.
So this may be a way for patients and
doctors to decrease the amount of opioids
in patients who are prescribed opioids,
such as cancer patients and patients
from trauma and spine disease.
A doctor, final question,
the majority of your prescriptions
that you write are basically for
what ailment that. People have.
Well, as I looked at by
statistics of the 13,000 patients,
75% are being prescribed for paid.
But when I look at the pain,
many of these patients have not
only traumatic injury or cancer,
many of them have pain
related to multiple sclerosis,
Parkinson's disease and and spine injuries.
So there's a long list of reasons why
people are being prescribed opioids,
some of them truly.
Beneficial like in patients with cancer,
but adding an opioid to it may decrease
the total amount of narcotics being
used for the treatment of pain.
And I think that's a good thing
because opiates not only cause
the potential for death but also.
Mental issues, depression,
Constipation,
disorientation.
So opiates have a long list of side
effects that medical marijuana may help out.
And I think that's the benefit of this study.
Doctor Laszlo Mechler,
medical director at Dent
Neurological Institute,
one of the best in the business.
Doctor, thank you for joining us tonight.
We really appreciate your time.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much. Thank you.