I honestly don't know why you guys find this unexpected; it's a pretty obvious effect. People in pain self-medicate; and overusing marijuana is far far safer than overusing "proper" painkillers. The tendency of Americans to self-medicate with painkillers and other medical drugs to the point of abuse has been pretty legendary over here for decades now, especially as compared to here where we not only don't have that self-medication culture but also few taboos surrounding soft drugs; the link came up quite a bit whenever we discussed our drug policy even back in the 90's; you're only discovering this now?
I thought most painkiller ODs were druggies, not under-treated pain patients.
Perhaps they're counting fried livers as painkiller deaths.
Most overdose deaths, at least in Louisiana, are found in recovering addicts who relapse and take their customary dose. Their newly dried out systems can't handle the old fix and they die. This is most common in heroin addicts, but is also seen in Oxycontin/vicodin/demerol users.
This is an even more common cause of death in recovering alcoholics. A person who has been clean and sober(whatever that means) cannot go back and drink a fifth of vodka in an hour, like they once could. They pass out and die, just like any other citizen.
In the US, we have a strange painkiller culture. At one time Oxycontin and Vicodin were seen as miracle drugs and a good alternative to the previous generation of painkillers. Of course, this is why heroin was supposed to be an alternative to opium and why morphine was supposed to be an alternative to heroin. Doctors were happy to dispense these new "safe" pain killers.
I remember trips to the emergency room for various injuries and the doctors practically pushed prescriptions into my bandaged hand as I was leaving. About the time Rush Limbaugh's drug problems were exposed to daylight, doctors retreated. They were being blamed for the nation's painkiller addiction and if there is anything doctors hate, it's being blamed for something they did. About 10 years ago, I suffered a fractured arm. It was one of those annoying breaks which won't benefit from a cast, so the basic treatment was suck it up. I was given a script for week's worth of Vicodin by the emergency room doctor. The next week, my orthopedist gave me a week of Oxycontin. I wasn't impressed by either, I only took the prescribed dose. After two weeks, I was on my on. I could take whatever Walgreens would sell me.
These days, there are lots of prescription painkiller addicts walking among us. This is based on an informal survey of people I see everyday. If this is a representative sample of the population, there are millions of them in the US. I have a close friend who suffers from chronic pain. His pain management plan allows him 3 fairly large Oxycontins a day. He doesn't like to take them when working, and so over a month, he will accumulate dozens of surplus pills. When people found out he had a legal prescription, they formed a line. They are all people who had prescriptions, but have been cut off by their doctor. The going rate is $10 a pill. Since the co-pay for the prescription is $10 for a bottle if 100, there is quite a profit margin in this sort of business. He could sell every pill he has and still have people wanting more.
In my neighborhood, there was a recent spike in heroin overdoses, some fatalities and a lot more near misses. This was attributed to law enforcement efforts to fight unprescribed prescription painkillers. A big investigation shut down the operations of several doctors who were selling prescriptions and this dried up the street supply.
