Are Plant-Based Meds a Way Out of Harmful Prescription Meds?
Plant-based medicine is an approach to treating medical conditions directly with plant parts and materials. Rubbing insect bites with a broken piece of an aloe plant is a rudimentary example. In modern medicine, however, plant-based treatments have become far more complex. For some people, they also represent a way out of more harmful prescription medications.
Plant-based medicines are one of the specialties at Utah’s KindlyMD. KindlyMD runs a number of healthcare clinics throughout the state, clinics that see a high volume of chronic pain patients looking for access to the Utah Medical Card program and the plant-based medicines attached to it.
For so many of these patients, plant-based medicines represent a way out of prescription painkillers. KindlyMD makes no guarantees, but they do acknowledge that it is possible to either reduce or completely eliminate prescription narcotics using a plant-based substitute.
The Research Doesn’t Lie
Since the introduction of medical cannabis as a culturally acceptable alternative back in the 1990s, researchers have been looking into its effectiveness as a replacement for prescription narcotics. Early studies did not provide concrete results due to federal restrictions on cannabis research. But more recent studies have verified what cannabis proponents have believed for a long time.
Take a study conducted in New York state between 2017 and 2019. Its results were published in 2022. Researchers enrolled more than 8,100 patients diagnosed with chronic pain, all of whom were being treated with “long-term opioid therapy.” The patients were offered medical cannabis and then tracked for both opioid and cannabis consumption.
Without getting into all the details, researchers discovered that long term cannabis consumption was associated with a reduction in opioid usage. The greatest opioid reductions were observed among patients taking the highest doses.
The research does not lie. This particular study is not the only one demonstrating that chronic pain patients can reduce or eliminate prescription narcotics by using medical cannabis instead. And for the record, medical cannabis is plant-based medicine in one of its purest forms.
There Are No Guarantees
For every study demonstrating that plant-based medicines can offer a pathway out of more harmful drugs, there are critics ready to jump on the fact that such medicines do not always work. That much is true. But the same can be said about any therapy under the sun. There are never any guarantees. No therapy is 100% effective all the time.
A better way to look at it is to compare efficacy and potential harm. To a chronic pain patient in search of relief, that relief defines efficacy. A therapy is efficacious if it reduces or eliminates pain. Moreover, chronic pain patients do not need the FDA’s seal of approval to tell whether or not a plant-based medicine works.
In terms of harm, we need to look at the impact of every therapy a patient might try. It goes without saying that medical cannabis is not completely harmless. By the same token, prescription narcotics aren’t harmless either. Which one has the greater potential for harm?
It’s Time for a Second Look
I will be honest and say that I was once skeptical of plant-based medicine. I have since changed my mind. I am now more skeptical of western medicine and its propensity to break out the prescription pad every time a person doesn’t feel well. In my opinion, it’s time for a second look.
Plant-based medicine has thousands of years of history behind it. I think it is time we begin reintegrating it into America’s healthcare system. It deserves an equal place at the table, at least as a pathway out of more harmful drugs.
