A new study in the British Medical Journal sheds some light on the hotly debated issue of whether marijuana legalization has an impact on the opioid epidemic, but it also raises new questions. Researchers found an “association” between a higher number of cannabis stores in counties and a lower mortality rate from opioid use. The authors point out, however, that they cannot find any cause-and-effect between stores and deaths. Supporters of legalization argue that easier access to pot—purportedly a benign drug—is preferable to opioid use. But a strongly worded editorial accompanying the study warns that marijuana cannot be regarded as a remedy to the opioid crisis until a robust evidence base is available.
Meanwhile, there’s new research concerning another contentious debate—about CBD products and claims about its effectiveness for a range of maladies This study in the journal Addiction shows that CBD, the non-psychoactive component of marijuana, did not have any benefits for individuals with cocaine addiction. In fact, it did not lower participants’ cravings for cocaine, or their risk for relapse. There is only one FDA-approved drug with CBD, for a rare form of epilepsy, but that hasn’t stopped marketers from pushing CBD as a panacea for everything from anxiety to cancer and even COVID-19, as well as substance use disorder.
And finally, cigarette sales in the United States are soaring due in part to the pandemic lockdown, but e-cigarette use has nosedived due to health concerns, according to new data from Marlboro maker Altria Group. E-cigarette sales were booming before the pandemic, but the outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and deaths have caused smokers to return to conventional cigarettes.