maggiemoorely: Why Is Chronic Pain The Most Prevalent ...

In this day and age, there is a continuous push towards individual states legalizing cannabis medicinally. Sixteen states have legalized it and ten more states have it on the horizon. It remains illegal federally and is a Schedule 1 narcotic.

One of the ubiquitous reasons for legalizing arizona medical marijuana is the debilitating condition of chronic pain. This is the number one reason in every state that has it legalized for usage, and in some states it is the overwhelming favorite. Why?

First off, let?s look at the substantial numbers for chronic pain. The Institute of Medicine had a recent research project showing that over one hundred million Americans suffer from some sort of chronic pain. The cost directly and indirectly is over five hundred billion annually between lost work time, medical care disability, etc. The statistic is truly mind blowing.

There are 2 treatments for chronic pain in the US that are well known ? alternative and traditional. Traditional treatments include those that are mainstream, usually covered by insurance, and have substantial peer reviewed research backing up their use. Traditional treatments often have FDA approval, but not all the time.

Alternative treatments are those not usually reimbursed by insurance, and may not have considerable research backing them up. This does not negate their potential assistance with chronic pain, particularly when used along with traditional treatments. It is just a way of categorizing the two. Some alternative methods including holistic, herbal, acupuncture, naturopathic, biofeedback, and some still include chiropractic and massage in this category. This is changing as more insurance companies cover them along with studies being done.

People end up with chronic pain for many reasons. It may be a peripheral neuropathy without a surgical answer, or a failed back surgery that only helped alleviate 20% of a person?s pain. An individual may have rheumatoid arthritis or scleroderma, that encompasses diffuse pain that may or may not be helped by narcotics.

One issue that rears its ugly head all the time with chronic pain is narcotics. Most people, if they are hard working stand up individuals, cannot stand taking narcotic medications. They hate taking increasing amounts for pain relief (tolerance) and want to be productive, pain free, and able to stay away from an addictive and mind altering medication.

It is not a terrible thing to see a high number of chronic pain individuals turning to an alternative pain relief with az medical marijuana card. The bad part about it is when individuals who are not legitimate start utilizing it (think the young adult male faking back pain to get a marijuana card). The amount of times this occurs is a small number of the whole.

With the substantial amount of individuals in America with chronic pain, and the multitude of reasons as to why these individuals got to that situation, means the applicant pool for medical marijuana card AZ will be much larger than for the other reasons. Providing them with a non-addictive option that is natural and legal will open up an avenue of optimism and hope than continuing the bad situation of narcotic despair and addiction.