- “78 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.” – CDC ‘Understanding the Epidemic’
- Since 2000 opioid overdose deaths have increased 200%. – Rudd, R. (2016). Increases in Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths — United States, 2000–2014. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep., 64(50-51), 1378-1382. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6450a3
- “2.6 million people in this country are addicted to opioids” – Scharper, J. (2016, Fall). Administered for pain, drugs like OxyContin have taken a massive toll. Johns Hopkins Magazine.
- “Americans, constituting only 4.6% of the world’s population, have been consuming 80% of the global opioid supply” – Manchikanti, L. (2010). Therapeutic Use, Abuse, and Nonmedical Use of Opioids: A Ten-Year Perspective. Pain Physician, 13, 401
- “75% of those who began their opioid abuse in the 2000s reported that their first regular opioid was a prescription drug” – Cicero, T. (2014). The Changing Face of Heroin Use in the United States. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 821. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.366
- “In a national study of hospital emergency department visits for opioid overdoses, 67.8 percent of the overdoses involved prescription opioids” – Yokell, M. (2014). Presentation of Prescription and Nonprescription Opioid Overdoses to US Emergency Departments. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(12), 2034. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.5413
- “From 1999 to 2014, sales of legal opioids nearly quadrupled.” – Scharper, J. (2016, Fall). Administered for pain, drugs like OxyContin have taken a massive toll. Johns Hopkins Magazine.
- “Health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.” – CDC ‘Opioid Prescription Prescribing’
- “A high proportion of Part D beneficiaries continued to receive commonly abused opioids, which also raises concerns. In 2015, almost 12 million beneficiaries—30 percent—received at least one of these drugs”. Cost $4 billion – HHS OIG Data Brief June 2016 OEI-02-16-00290
- “The aggregate cost for these prescription opioid–related overdose, abuse, and dependence was over $78.5 ($70.1–$87.3) billion.” – Florence, C. (2016). The Economic Burden of Prescription Opioid Overdose, Abuse, and Dependence in the United States, 2013. Medical Care, 54(10), 901-906. doi:10.1097/mlr.0000000000000625
- States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate” compared with states without medical cannabis laws.” – Bachhuber, M. (2014). Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(10), 1668. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.4005
- “National overall reductions in Medicare program and enrollee spending when states implemented medical marijuana laws were estimated to be $165.2 million per year in 2013.” “we found that implementing an effective medical marijuana law led to a reduction of between 265 daily doses (for depression) and 1,826 daily doses (for pain) filled per physician per year” “Assuming the remaining states are of similar size, we forecast that if all states were to have adopted a medical marijuana laws by 2013, total spending by Medicare Part Dwouldhavebeen$468.1 million less in that year than it would have been had no state adopted such a law.” – Bradford, A. (2016). Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Prescription Medication Use In Medicare Part D. Health Affairs, 35(7), 1230-1236. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1661
- “In August 2016, Insys Therapeutics, the maker of Fentanyl, donated $500,000 to help defeat an AZ ballot measure to legalize marijuana. (They are currently developing a product called Dronabinol, which uses synthetic version of THC.” – Fang, L. (2016). Pharma Company Funding Anti-Pot Fight Worried About Losing Business, Filings Show. The Intercept
- disclosure statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission: … “If marijuana or non-synthetic cannabinoids were legalized in the United States, the market for dronabinol product sales would likely be significantly reduced and our ability to generate revenue and our business prospects would be materially adversely affected)
- Someone was arrested for marijuana in the US every 49 seconds in 2015. 90% were for possession: Based on: 1,488,707 total arrests for drug violation; 4.6% of those were for sale and mfg of marijuana; 38.%6 possession of marijuana (574,640); Total: 643,121 Source: FBI 2015 Crime Report