Can Cannabis reduce the use of Oxycodone?

Paracetamol or Ibuprofen doesn’t always work when you have a severe ache. Those kinds of medication are available at the chemist or at the supermarket. The use of these types of medications comes with disadvantages. There can be side effects. Don’t just think of headaches, drowsiness and constipation. Also confusion, depression and respiratory problems occur quite often. Last year approximately 700 patients in the ER (emergency room) had severe side effects caused by using opiates. Opiates are also very addictive. In the US entire ethnic groups are addicted to oxycodone. It has even been mentioned that there is an oxycodone epidemic amongst “Hillbillies”. That is how the poor and lower educated people from the rural areas are called in the US. This is why oxycodone is also known as the hillbilly heroin. In the US chemists are often the medicine is sold illegally on the streets. That must say enough. In 2015 more Americans died of an overdose than that were killed in traffic accidents or shootings. Each day 142 died of an overdose. 91 of those people used too many opiates such as oxycodone. What about the use oxycodone in the Netherlands? Doctors try to help patients who have severe pains, as much as possible. A drug such as oxycodone can eliminate the pain. These good intentions have led to an increase in doctors in the Netherlands prescribing oxycodone. Research has shown that the number of user’s consumers has quadrupled in the last eight years. According to the foundation pharmaceutical indicators (Stichting Farmaceutische Kengetallen) 440 thousand Dutch people consumed oxycodone. The media has given this subject some attention, but a few see this numbers as alarming. General practitioner Jos van Bemmel has been warning his colleagues for years. He sees the increase as a problem that must be dealt with rigorously. If we don’t do so within no time we will see the same problems as in the US, so he warns. Who would have thought that cannabis could be a solution to these problems? On February 5th 2018 the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology published an interesting scientific article. Pain management is the main reason patients choose the use cannabis. Now that it is easier to come by in the US scientist see a shift. Patients are more likely to choose cannabis (THC) instead of oxycodone. With patients who have severe chronic pains an enormous decline of oxycodone consumption is noticeable. There are indications that the analgesic effect of oxycodone is enhanced by the use of cannabis. It would be good news if the medicinal use of cannabis would cause a decrease in the use of Opiates. The THC in cannabis can have side effects, but nobody has ever died of overdose cannabis. This fact makes it incomprehensible that in January 2018 Trumps government has announced a new war against cannabis. Let’s hope the Donald Trump comes to the insight that cannabis is a blessing for all the Hillbillies that voted for him on a massive scale. Translated by Joanna McKernan. Joanna works as a Lawyer for the law firm Beckers & Bergmans in Sittard. She is a native English speaker. Joanna has a lot of experience in cannabis related civil cases. André Beckers (Lawyer) andre@beckersbergmans.nl available on phone: 003165317489 Joanna McKernan (Lawyer) joanna@beckersbergmans.nl available on phone: 0031467600030