Tenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Pain, from various sources, is the number one complaint of patients in the United States. It is also the number 1 problem that patients state is poorly addressed by their clinicians. This has lead, in recent years, to the over-prescription of opioid pain medications, resultant over-use or misuse of these medications, addiction, increased use of illegal opiates like heroin, and overdose related deaths. The federal government, having only lately caught on to this trend, has called it an “epidemic” and released multiple documents describing ways to reduce opioid prescription, none of which truly address the underlying problem: patients’ pain. Further, a secondary issue of what to do about patients who have already become dependent on opiates has been met with plans that leave much to be desired, and often do not adequately address patients’ pain. Cannabis has been shown to effectively address pain from multiple sources,1 and has a much better safety profile than opiates.3 It has also been shown that Cannabis use concomitantly with opioids can reduce the amount of opioids needed,2.4 presumably increasing patient safety. In many instances, Cannabis can treat pain sufficiently that all opiates can be discontinued.5 There is some preliminary data on using Cannabis to detox patients from opiates.6,7 In this session, I will present a synopsis of the evidence mentioned above and address clinical approaches to real-world treatment of patients with chronic pain who are either using, or not yet using, opioids medications.