Tag: opioid epidemic

Medical Marijuana ‘Significantly’ Decreases Use Of Opioids By Chronic Pain Patients, New Study Finds

A new study is offering more evidence that marijuana can serve as an effective substitute for opioids in pain management treatment.

Researchers in Australia at Murdoch University and the Perth Pain Management Centre set out to investigate how the integration of cannabinoids into treatment for people with chronic non-cancer pain would impact opioid use.

The study, published in the journal Pain Management on Monday, determined that “co-prescription of cannabinoids may enable patients to reduce their opioid consumption prescribed for chronic benign pain.”

To assess the relationship between cannabis and opioids in treatment, researchers followed two cohorts of patients over the course of a year: One group of 102 patients at a pain clinic who were already taking opioids and were co-prescribed cannabis and another group of 53 patients at a different clinic who were only receiving opioids, without marijuana.

At the baseline, the median patient was taking about 40 mg of opioids per day. After a year, the group that received a median dose of medical cannabis containing 15 mg delta-9 THC and 15 mg of CBD “significantly” decreased their opioid dose to 2.7 mg per day. The opioid-only cohort after one year was taking a median 42.3 mg per day.

“The introduction of cannabinoids can produce useful reductions in opioid consumption in real-world settings, with additional benefits for disability and insomnia,” the study authors said. “However, this treatment is tolerated by only a subgroup of patients.”

Among the cohort that incorporated cannabis into their treatment regiment, “opioid consumption decreased significantly after both 6 and 12 months.”

“Physical activity and sleep also improved. These findings indicate that medicinal cannabis can help patients to reduce their opioid consumption and improve their physical activity and sleep,” the study concluded.

The findings are also consistent with a growing body of scientific literature exploring the association between cannabis and opioid use.

For example, a study published earlier this year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that, among drug users who experience chronic pain, daily cannabis use was linked to a higher likelihood of quitting the use of opioids—especially among men.

A study published late last year also found that legalizing medical cannabis appeared to significantly reduce monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.

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Chaotic NYC ‘Safe’ Injection-Sites Put On Notice By Trump

Democrats fully own the crime and chaos plaguing major cities, after decades of failed progressive experiments that have only backfired spectacularly, transforming some parts of America’s largest metropolitan areas into lawless, crime-ridden no-go zones. 

There’s an urgent need for course correction and to restore law and order in major cities run by rogue Democratic leaders whose failed social justice policies (influenced by leftist billionaires and their NGOs), like defunding the police and “safe” injection sites, have only fueled more crime, chaos, and disorder on the streets. 

President Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order, issued late last month, has put these taxpayer-funded safe injection sites on notice.

Safe injection sites, such as those run by nonprofit OnPoint NYC in East Harlem and Washington Heights, supervise illegal drug use under the guise of harm reduction.

A clear legal precedent was set in 2019 under President Trump’s first term via the Department of Justice that successfully blocked a proposed safe injection site in Philadelphia under the Controlled Substances Act. The Third Circuit upheld the decision, and the Supreme Court let it stand. That ruling could now be used against NYC’s injection sites if the Manhattan U.S. Attorney chooses to follow Philadelphia’s lead. 

Trump’s new order calls on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to ensure that none of its “discretionary grants” indirectly fund such sites, which have been causing significant problems at the local level.

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Opening Legal Marijuana Dispensaries Is Tied To A Huge Drop In Opioid-Related Deaths, Analysis Finds

Counties that have marijuana dispensaries see an average of 30 percent fewer opioid-related deaths compared to counties without legal cannabis shops open, suggesting a substitution effect away from prescription pills and heroin toward the plant-based treatment, according to a new data analysis.

In a Washington Post piece on Wednesday, Harvard University economics student Julien Berman used data from the University of Michigan that identifies dispensary locations at the county level to compare opioid overdose trends over 10 years in jurisdictions where cannabis became legally available compared to those without regulated access.

“The theory is straightforward: making cannabis more available—and reducing its cost—could induce people to shift from opioids, which are super dangerous, to marijuana, a significantly safer alternative,” Berman said. “Existing opioid users seeking pain relief can choose marijuana instead of heroin, especially in counties where recreational use is legal and access is easy. And new potential users might never turn to opioids at all if they could get marijuana instead.”

Other factors were taken into account to support the conclusion, including comparisons of opioid mortality rates in counties within a legal state where some allow retailers to operate and others have chosen to opt out.

“That kind of variation helps rule out other state-level changes such as expanded access to naloxone—a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose—as the main cause of the drop in deaths,” Berman said.

On average, the opioid death rates following the establishment of cannabis dispensaries declined more sharply in the immediate years after the opening compared to dry counties. But from years five to 10, there’s a more precipitous effect, with an average rate of 27 percent fewer opioid deaths in jurisdictions that have cannabis storefronts after a decade.

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Trump’s Anti-Crime Order Brings Back Long Term Facilities to House the Mentally Ill and Addicted

President Donald Trump issued a July 24 executive order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” A record of more than 274,000 individuals were found to be experiencing homelessness. Homelessness often leads to increased crime and fires. Trump’s order pushes local governments to redirect the homeless to “long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment.” Cabinet heads have been instructed to prioritize funding to cities that work to abolish open drug use and camping on the streets. During the Biden administration, from 2022 – 2024, the federal government spent $28 billion, with most of the money going to Democrat cities that include New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Portland and San Francisco. During this period, homelessness increased by a whopping  33%. 

As of 2025, an estimated 72,308 people experienced homelessness in Los Angeles County. Homelessness is a business, and non-profit organizations are getting rich, in Democrat -majority California. The state currently is “missing” $24 billion in funds intended for the homeless! The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is set to lose $300 million in funding, about 40% of its $875-million budget. LAHSA the lead agency that coordinates and manages federal, state, county, and city funds for the homeless.

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China, Fentanyl, and the Biden Administration’s Failure, Covered by Misleading Data

One of the many reasons for the U.S.-China trade war is President Trump holding Xi Jinping accountable for the fentanyl precursor chemicals that are flowing from China to Mexican drug cartels.

The cartels then manufacture fentanyl and distribute it in the U.S., killing over 100,000 Americans per year. This was an issue during Trump’s first term, when China agreed to crack down on these exports, and here we are nine years later, and the chemicals are still flowing.

China is a totalitarian state that runs a full digital surveillance system where literally every minute of every citizen’s life is being filmed and analyzed with AI.

The state can achieve a 100% conviction rate against criminals while also cracking down on even the slightest dissent. With his massive AI and data databases, secret police, and spies, Xi Jinping can control virtually every aspect of life in China, yet he claims to be unaware that Chinese chemical companies are selling fentanyl precursors to Mexican drug cartels.

President Trump has accused China of “actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens” and stated that “PRC officials have failed to follow through with the decisive actions needed to stem the flow of” fentanyl and precursor chemicals. In early February 2025, he imposed a 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, accusing Beijing of allowing fentanyl and its precursors to be shipped to the United States.

The tariffs have since escalated, reaching 127.2 percent in early May 2025. The White House has been explicit that Chinese officials have “failed” to stop the flow of precursor chemicals, used to make fentanyl, to criminal cartels.

Law enforcement agencies and government officials in the U.S. agree most of the precursor chemicals used to make street fentanyl flow from industrial companies in China to drug gangs in Mexico.

China is still the principal supplier of these precursors for fentanyl after Chinese trafficking networks switched from supplying finished fentanyl to precursor chemicals.

China has pushed back strongly, with officials saying “The fentanyl issue is a flimsy excuse to raise U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports” and that “We stand ready for practical cooperation with the US based on equality and mutual respect. That said, we firmly oppose the US pressuring, threatening and blackmailing China under the pretext of the fentanyl issue”.

Under Biden, Xi Jinping made limited concessions, including the implementation of new regulations allegedly targeting money laundering by drug organizations and scheduling three fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The Biden administration called this a “valuable step forward,” pointing to a 21% national drop in fatal overdoses from fentanyl since June 2023.

Both the Biden administration and Beijing claimed that this cooperation was already yielding results even before Trump took office. But these claims are misleading.

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Why Parents Are Suing Snapchat Over Fentanyl Deaths

Over and over, Amy Neville forces herself to tell people what happened to her 14-year-old son.

“I relive it. … I’m out there sharing the hardest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” she said. “It’s worth it, because I know we’re saving lives.”

Neville, 52, wiped away tears as she spoke those words during an interview with The Epoch Times on June 23. That day marked five years since her son, Alexander Neville, unknowingly ingested fentanyl and died—a tragedy that could easily befall any family, she said.

Through the nonprofit Alexander Neville Foundation, the grieving mother shares her personal pain with other parents. By her estimation, Amy Neville has given a couple hundred presentations in person and online; about 300,000 people have heard her warnings about the dangers that lurk on social media, leading to deaths such as Alex’s.

Neville also serves as the lead plaintiff in a groundbreaking court case that could affect the way Big Tech operates in the United States.

She believes that changes are needed to prevent many deaths among young people who, like Alex, flock to Snapchat and other online platforms.

Neville and her husband are among 63 fentanyl victims’ families suing Snapchat. They allege that the platform is a defective product and a public nuisance and that it should be held responsible for fentanyl overdose deaths, poisonings, and injuries.

Snap Inc., parent company of Snapchat, “vehemently denies” the allegations, a judge noted.

In the suit, the Social Media Victims Law Center represents dozens of families whose children “died of fentanyl poisoning from contaminated drugs purchased on Snapchat,” Matthew Bergman, the Seattle-based center’s founding attorney, told The Epoch Times.

Snap did not respond to a request for comment.

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State Gives a Deadly Gift to Fentanyl Makers, Big Pharma, and Drug Warriors — A Ban on Kratom

This Friday, August 1, 2025, Louisiana will criminalize a leaf. Not fentanyl. Not meth. Not synthetic opioids that kill over 100,000 Americans every year. No, lawmakers have decided to outlaw kratom — a safe, natural plant in the coffee family — and those caught with it could face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

To understand the full weight of this insanity, you have to peel back the curtain on the drug war’s real purpose. It’s not about keeping people safe. It’s about criminalizing autonomy. It’s about corporate profits, institutional control, and punishing people for the crime of treating themselves outside of state-approved chemical dependency.

Kratom isn’t the threat. The threat is what it replaces.

The Lie That Keeps Killing

For years, scientists, doctors, and hundreds of thousands of kratom users have warned the federal government: ban this plant, and opioid deaths will rise.

In 2018, a group of scientists wrote to the DEA and White House, blasting the FDA’s push to classify kratom as a Schedule I drug. They made it clear: kratom, when used in its natural form, does not cause respiratory depression — the primary cause of death in opioid overdoses. More importantly, the plant has become a lifeline away from opioids for millions.

“Placing kratom into Schedule I will potentially increase the number of deaths of Americans caused by opioids,” the scientists warned, adding that the FDA’s data blaming kratom for dozens of deaths was riddled with inconsistencies, co-ingestions, and zero proof of causation.

In fact, many of those “kratom deaths” were linked to adulterated products, synthetic extracts, or pre-existing conditions — not the raw plant. One such alkaloid, 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), has been artificially concentrated in some unregulated kratom extracts to mimic opioid-like effects, but this is not kratom. This is corporate bastardization — the same playbook used to demonize cannabis while pushing synthetic THC.

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Trump signs bill cracking down on fentanyl, strengthening drug penalties

President Donald Trump has signed legislation designed to strengthen penalties for offenses involving fentanyl and its related analogs.

At a White House ceremony, Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act alongside politicians and families whose loved ones have since perished as a result of fentanyl.

Trump described the bill signing as a “historic step toward justice for every family touched by the fentanyl scourge as we signed the HALT Fentanyl Act into law.”

“We’ll be getting the drug dealers, pushers, and peddlers off our street, and we will not rest until we have ended the drug overdose epidemic,” Trump said. “And it’s been getting a little bit better, but it’s horrible.”

The Act targets unauthorized fentanyl analogs, not the FDA-approved fentanyl used in hospitals for anesthesia and pain management. That medical-grade fentanyl remains classified as Schedule II, meaning it’s highly regulated but still legal for medical use. The reclassification simply closes loopholes that previously allowed underground chemists to tweak fentanyl’s molecular structure and evade federal law.

“The bill also makes several other changes to registration requirements for conducting research with controlled substances, including:

  • Permitting a single registration for related research sites in certain circumstances,
  • Waiving the requirement for a new inspection in certain situations, and
  • Allowing a registered researcher to perform certain manufacturing activities with small quantities of a substance without obtaining a manufacturing registration,” the legislation’s webpage states.

The legislation, which received bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, permanently places all fentanyl-related substances, including synthetic variants of the opioid, on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The bill also offers law enforcement more ability to combat the spread of the substance and imposes harsher punishments for anybody convicted of possessing or distributing it.

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The Real Opioid Crisis Isn’t Prescriptions—It’s Prohibition

Purdue Pharma recently reached a $7.4 billion settlement with all 50 states and the District of Columbia over its alleged role in fueling the opioid crisis through aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Regardless of the case’s merits, this landmark deal highlights what can happen when an expedient narrative replaces data-driven public policy.

Nowhere is the gap between narrative and data more clear than in West Virginia, the hardest-hit state in the country. While a wave of books and Netflix docudramas has promoted an oversimplified and often misleading storyline, new data from the West Virginia Department of Health cast a glaring spotlight on the human cost of “prescription opioid prohibition”—a policy that has failed in every tangible way. 

Overdose deaths in the state have doubled as illicit fentanyl and other street drugs have replaced the much safer prescription pills. Meanwhile, policymakers and regulators have demonized pain medications, causing real harm to patients. Many patients can no longer access legal prescriptions and instead turn to the streets, where they have an increased risk of death from taking adulterated or counterfeit pills. Policymakers addressed the wrong problem with the wrong tools—and made the crisis worse.

West Virginia Department of Health data illustrate this deadly shift. From 2015 to 2023, as prescription opioid access declined, overdose deaths in West Virginia soared—even though overdoses from prescription medications declined slightly—because users and abusers turned to riskier street drugs.

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Cato Institute VP Dismisses Mass Fentanyl Deaths: Voluntary Overdoses ‘Are Not Homicides’

The open-borders Cato Institute is on the defensive after one of its top pro-migration advocates dismissed the overdose deaths of many young Americans as “voluntary” transactions.

The statement came a day after Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) grilled Alex Nowrasteh — Cato’s vice president for economic and social policy studies — about his support for President Joe Biden’s mass migration.

Tiffany asked Nowrasteh during the Wednesday hearing if his calculations about migrant crimes included drug deaths.

Nowrasteh dismissed drug overdoses as commercial accidents: “Do you mean the people who voluntarily took fentanyl and overdosed under that tragic situation? No, those are not homicides, sir.”

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