REAL ISSUE IS HOW DOCTORS HANDLE PAIN MEDICATION

Medical Marijuana Advice Isn't Worth What You Think

While Dianne Byrum advocates strenuously for "medical marijuana,"
(Viewpoint, Feb. 23) she based her rationale erroneously and
dangerously on physicians' competence as knowledgeable and skilled in
prescribing addicting medications for therapeutic medical care.

Unfortunately, physicians are poorly trained and not inclined toward
assessing the risks and benefits of addicting drugs whether legal or
illicit in their medical practices. As the American Academy of Family
Practice publicly declared that addiction to prescription opioid
medications is a "myth," particularly when prescribing for pain.

Because the physician is the major supplier of prescription opioid
medications (painkillers), the epidemic of escalating medical drug
use as Americans use 80 percent of the world's supply of all opioids
and 99 percent of hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lortab). In addition,
hydrocodone is the most commonly prescribed medication in the U.S.

Since the "politics" of pain gained traction, the retail sales of
opioid medications has soared (increase from 1997 to 2005):
hydrocodone 198 percent; oxycodone (OxyContin) 588 percent; methadone
933 percent. Predictably chronic use of opioid medications leads to
addiction, and paradoxically, increased pain symptoms. Annually
500,000 opioid users seek treatment for detoxification and addiction
from 1.5 million who are dependent and addicted to opioid medications.

Importantly, the physician is the ultimate source for most sufferers
of prescription opioid problems and addiction. Thus, physician
prescribing of marijuana will further expand the already epidemic use
of marijuana among teenagers, and eventually adults. And more legal
and health-related problems, including deaths.

Because addiction inevitably arises with repeated use of marijuana,
the adverse consequences include mood depression, cognitive memory
loss, apathy, physical debilitation and pallor. In addition, a
person's performance and function will be drastically reduced, as
marijuana effects dominate minds and bodies of their addicted users.

In 2006, 1,229,000 marijuana users received treatment for their
marijuana addiction from 4,172,000 who were dependent and addicted to
marijuana, among adolescents and adults. (U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services 2006 survey results)

Currently, medical schools offer as little as two hours of lecture
time devoted to drug and alcohol addiction/problems, and residency
programs offer little or no training in addictions. The alarming lack
of education and training for doctors continues despite 25 percent to
50 percent of their patients suffer from drug and alcohol addictions
and their medical complications.

Although drug and alcohol addictions account for more than 800,000
deaths a year, doctors are severely underprepared to treat alcohol
and drug disorders. And they cannot be relied on to advise on public
policy and to prescribe and monitor adverse consequences of addicting
medications, particularly, marijuana.

While barriers to educating physicians on addictions, imposing
further debilitation and death from greater drug supply in the name
of ill- founded medical care is dangerous to public health.

How many parents and children must pay for loss of life and liberty
from poorly guided and uninformed public policy? When will we demand
better medical care from and education for our physicians? How much
will that cost us until we do?