Marijuana helps people with substance misuse disorders stay off opioids or reduce their use, maintain treatment and manage withdrawal symptoms, a new federally funded study finds.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) set out to investigate the relationship between cannabis consumption and injecting opioids, recruiting 30 people in Los Angeles at a community site near a syringe exchange service program and methadone clinic to analyze the relationship.

The study, was published by the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports this week and was partially funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), supports a sizable body of scientific literature indicating that access to marijuana can offset the harms of the opioid epidemic, either by helping people limit use or giving them an offramp altogether.

From July 2021 to April 2022, researchers conducted interviews with the participants to learn about how cannabis has affected their opioid use. “Cannabis provided rapid relief from opioid withdrawal reducing frequency of opioid use.” Among the themes that emerged was that marijuana co-use “assisted in developing patterns of reduced opioid use in a number of ways: 1) maintain opioid cessation and/or adhere to opioid use disorder treatment by managing cessation-specific symptoms, 2) manage symptoms of opioid withdrawal episodically and, 3) decrease opioid use due to low barrier accessibility of cannabis.”

“Participants reported using cannabis substitution or co-use to manage the pain from withdrawal symptoms such as body aches and generalized discomfort which led to decreased opioid injection frequency,” the researchers found.

“Participants reported myriad benefits of opioid and cannabis co-use for reducing patterns of opioid use,” the study says, adding that there are two key harm reduction implications.

First, they concluded that distributing marijuana via peer programming can significantly influence opioid use patterns. Second, they said cannabis could be added as an opioid treatment option alongside other existing medication, which “may improve efficacy of uptake and treatment outcomes and goals.”

The report included samples of interview transcripts that speak to the findings. Here are some examples:

26-year-old male: “I was really trying to get off of opiates and using weed really helps to not have the first urge […]

Marijuana Helps People Reduce Opioid Use And Manage Withdrawal Symptoms, New Federally Funded Study Finds