Ex-B.C. health minister says marijuana may help treat opioid addiction

published on January 12, 2018 by Laura Kane in The Globe and Mail

Terry Lake, the former British Columbia health minister who oversaw the declaration of a public-health emergency amid the deadly fentanyl crisis, is urging more research on the effects of marijuana on opioid addictions.

Now a vice-president at a medical cannabis company, Lake said there is preliminary evidence that shows marijuana can help people with addictions reduce their use of hard drugs and ease the painful symptoms of withdrawal.

“I’m not saying it’s the answer to the opioid crisis. I’m saying it’s one of the options we should explore,” said Lake, who chose not to run in last spring’s provincial election.

“It’s very promising and deserving of further research and there’s no better place to do that than in British Columbia.”

Lake, who was hired last August by Quebec-based Hydropothecary, will join a researcher, an activist and others for a discussion of pot as an opioid substitute at the Lift Cannabis Expo in Vancouver on Sunday.

There have been “intriguing” early studies that have suggested cannabis might play a beneficial role in lowering the risk of overdose deaths, said M-J Milloy, a research scientist with the BC Centre on Substance Use.

A 2014 study in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine found that states with legal cannabis had an opioid death rate that was 25 per cent lower than states where pot was illegal.

A Canadian paper, published last year in The International Journal of Drug Policy, surveyed 271 medical cannabis patients and found 63 per cent used pot as a substitute for prescription drugs and 30 per cent used it as a substitute for opiates.

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