In the modern day, pain management is dominated by opiate prescriptions. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of opiates, along with physical addiction, is central nervous system depression. It can be so severe someone can die; more simply put, the brain is so affected by opioid alkaline your body forgets to breathe.
Not every opioid overdose is fatal; some can be prevented with an opioid “blocker” such as Narcan. Even with Narcan becoming more distributed and less taboo, overdoses still occur frequently without many other drug options. Nevertheless, it is challenging to keep up with the increase of filling, obtaining, and maintaining an opiate prescription, so Americans are looking for alternatives.
Herein enters cannabis and the more legal and available option, CBD. Data suggests that access to cannabis, even in recreational communities, contributes to the lowing of opiate deaths as it provides alternative pain relief. CBD, however, is widely available and legal. CBD and drug interactions are important to know, as CBD can have different effects on the body depending on what’s introduced.
CYP450 is a compound found in the small intestine responsible for metabolizing substances. Because of this, using CBD just like any other vitamin or supplement must be discussed with your healthcare professional or at the very least researched.
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Harvard doctors studied the use of marijuana for pain and the effect that it has had on communities in the grip of the opiate crisis. They found that in societies where medical or recreational marijuana was available, the prescribing of opiates fell 5.88%. When speaking about actual fatalities, the number of deaths in a city that had access to cannabis fell 25%.
The main factor in decreasing opiate deaths, even in communities with legal marijuana is access. In states such as Michigan cannabis is permitted, but there is no way to purchase it legally. Considering that 60% of all opiate deaths are from patients with legitimate prescriptions access has a great deal to do with use addiction and eventual death. These statistics in these limited access communities have been misrepresented to show that there was no change to opiate-related deaths.
There are three different ways cannabis and CBD can be used for pain: the smoking and vaping of the flowers and extracts, edible infusions, and topicals. While smoking is the preferred method among veteran cannabis users, it can be easily dismissed as a healthy alternative because of the adverse effects of smoking. Edibles or oral tinctures can provide full spectrum relief without the risk of smoking. However, with THC-heavy cannabinoids, a long-lasting impairment is likely to follow in some instances up to 6-8 hours after ingestion. Sometimes this can scare off novice users. When comparing CBD vs THC, CBD has no psychoactive effects and CBD inhibits THC.
Finally, topicals marijuana, unlike the methods of ingestion listed above, topical cannabinoids cannot cross over the blood-brain barrier and cause unwanted impairment. Combine this with the instant pain relief that topical cannabinoids provide by increasing blood flow to the affected area. While already known to do this in instances of relives glaucoma a 2017 study found that topical cannabinoids specifically CBD have the same effect on applied areas.
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In all cases, it is essential to remember that the effectiveness of CBD is based on dosage. Dosage cannot be calculated without the accurate representation of the contents of a product. Many people are faced with buying easily accessed CBD products at a gas station or other less reputable vendors. The issue that occurs is the potency of CBD in these products is often overestimated; in some cases, products might be entirely absent from CBD. A list of these companies is provided by the FDA and can be found at FDA.gov.
Between all these methods of consumption, there is an accessible form of cannabinoids available to every American. Thus the need for prescribing opiates will be diminished and also the fatalities. Please take the time to educate yourself before making a purchase and trusting a CBD vendor; any company that has its product tested and shows updated results often to demonstrate compliance.
Finally, we can safely assume that access to cannabis and CBD products dramatically reduces the opiate deaths in a community. By increasing options for everyday Americans in finding relief from chronic pain and only faced with the choice of opiate therapy. The thing that could really help people in pain and those who are addicted is conversation and understanding that another treatment exists. You are even able to mail CBD right to your doorstep, as long as it doesn’t contain any THC.
The social stigma around getting a Vicodin prescription after a wisdom tooth extraction is far less than smoking a joint. We expose Americans to opiates at a very young age without many other options. One does not have to look far to find a friend or family member who has been affected by the opiate crisis, whether it is an overdose or a lesser event. It’s time for the modern American healthcare system to embrace cannabinoids as a legitimate therapy for people suffering from chronic pain.
Hopefully, in the future, tested valid potent marijuana products will be widely available for public consumption without the stigma or fear of persecution by law enforcement.
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For years, consumers have benefited from access to reasonably priced, safe, and effective CBD oil supplements. But recently the FDA pronounced the edict that the citizens of America are, herewith and forever more, ordered to call CBD a drug. CBD is not a supplement anymore by edict of the all-powerful demigod, the FDA! CBD is now a drug, which will be sold for $32,500 for a years supply.This is yet another rip off of the American People by the FDA/Big Pharma Drug Dealers Cartel.
It is sad that the US Congress has turned its back on the citizens of America, while the FDA, bought and paid for by the Legal Drug Lords of America, tramples the American people and makes a laughing stock of “the Land of the Free.” Indeed, the absence of checks and balances against the police power of the FDA, as an employee of the American drug cartels, leaves the American people at the mercy of the unbridled profiteering of rampant, gangster drug corporations that are allowed to be above the law. As the official henchmen for the US Drug Cartels, the FDA will unilaterally remove all CBD supplements from the American free market, by handing all control over to the legal drug lords of America.
I ask the Congress of the United States to intercede on behalf of the citizens of America to stop the FDA from handing the natural extract, CBD, over to their drug lord masters to then over price CBD as to make it unaffordable to the citizens of America. The nefarious intent being to remove all safe and cheap competition to the dangerous, addictive, opioid drugs pushed on the American people by the drug lords of America.
This is happening because of a Congressional back-channel that allows natural supplements to be falsely called “drugs” by the FDA. It works like this: if a company is investigating a natural substance, with the intent of chemically distorting it into a drug in order to get a patent on it, FDA rules give the company market exclusivity (monopoly) on that natural substance–even if it is already being sold on the free market as a supplement. There are only a few exceptions to this FDA rule, which is totally founded in conflict of interest. Indeed, the FDA is the most egregious conflict of interest ever perpetrated on the American people! And then, on top of that, it has been flagrantly and continuously condoned by the US Congress.
Anyhow, this means that GW Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the new CBD “drug”, can “ask” the FDA to give them a monopoly by removing affordable CBD oil supplements from the free market. The only option consumers will have is the new “drug” that costs $32,500 for a years supply. This hasn’t happened yet, but GW is simply waiting for the continued growing market for natural CBD oil to then step in, taking everything and establishing its monopoly, sanctioned and protected by the US Government.
This collusion of the US Congress and the FDA with the Medical Industrial Complex to steal affordable CBD oil from the American people shows how broken the US governing system is. An opioid epidemic, ever since “the Valley of the Dolls” in 1966, has been carried out by the legal drug lords and the FDA and is ravaging our country, with drug overdose deaths surpassing car accident fatalities. People are addicted to and dying from FDA-approved drugs. Yet, the agency is poised to eliminate consumer access to a non-addictive, cheap, safe, and effective alternative – CBD oil.
By having CBD removed from the free market, the Legal drug lords of America will insure that they continue to receive the big money from their dangerous, addictive, opioid drugs, which will continue to be pushed on the American people in a travesty of filth in high places, because the FDA and the United States Congress clear the way for these gangster corporations to ravage American society for profit.
If the US Congress was able to rise above its petty pandering to big money, they could order the FDA to actually take action against the Opioid Epidemic of Death in America! The FDA must provide an exemption for CBD oil–that is, despite the existence of a CBD “drug”, to allow the continued sale of affordable and effective CBD supplements, at therapeutic doses, and thereby provide to the American people safe support for pain that finally competes with the dangerous drugs pushed by the legal drug lords of America.
There is an amendment coming before the Senate Appropriations Committee that should have accomplished just that. But it is another Congressional failure! It includes a loop hole that leaves it up to the FDA to determine how much CBD can be included in each supplement. The FDA can specify such a low dose in the CBD supplement that the supplement is rendered completely ineffective. This is a travesty, as it leaves the FDA still in full control to eliminate the supplement, CBD.
In summary, Congress will have allowed an exemption for CBD, but the FDA can still continue to protect the legal drug lords of America by requiring ridiculously low levels of CBD in each supplement so that there will be no therapeutic value. The FDA/legal drug lords win again. So,why would the US Congress even consider such a two-faced amendment that with the right hand empowers and supports the citizens of America, but with the left hand nullifies that very amendment in the very same breath?
Please, who among you will stand up?
I have a friend, a very good, hard working woman, who walked into her 21 year old son’s bedroom last year, as she did every working day, to wake him. However, on this day he was dead! It was later determined that his prescribed drugs, taken as prescribed, eventually murdered him in his sleep!
Again, who among you will stand up?