Is Marijuana the Exit Out of the Opiod Crisis
As doctors, one of our primary responsibilities is to alleviate pain. Dr. Mike is an anesthesiologist and internist who, at the Cleveland Clinic, ran one of the largest pain therapy centers in the world; and as a heart surgeon, Dr. Oz is devoted
to easing cardiac-related pain and helping patients manage pain post-surgery.
For years, the medical profession relied on opiates to do the job, but now — because of the spike in addiction and overdoses from opioids — we have to find alternatives.
Each day in America opioid overdoses send more than 1,000 people to the emergency room, and prescription opioid pain relievers accounted for 20,101 deaths from overdose in 2015. In 2017, it appears opioid overdoses account for
more deaths (over 100 a day) than auto accidents.
How did we get here? The medical profession recognized that it needed to do more to help people deal with pain, but went too far. That coincided with the 1996 debut of the opioid pain reliever OxyContin (oxycodone). Marketed by Purdue Pharma, sales reps touted the drug as having an addiction rate of “less than 1 percent.”