Absolutely.
The most common substitution is for drugs involving chronic pain, so pharmaceutical opiates, and typically drugs that are pain relievers. Of course, the pharmaceutical opiates are attributed to the fastest-rising rate of addiction in Canada, with the associated fastest-rising rate of morbidity, which is disease and death—mortality. I think anything that allows us and physicians an alternative, to give them another tool than using prescription opiates in the treatment of chronic pain, can be very beneficial.
There has been no study to date to look at the impact on the public health system that medical cannabis users have or might have on the health system. That is part of my Ph.D. research right now. I'm doing an open cohort study of 90 patients who start using medical cannabis. I'm going to focus on post-traumatic stress disorder as a primary condition, and I'm going to track them over periods of time to see how medical cannabis use affects their use of other substances, and subject that to an economic analysis as well.
What I can tell you is that there has been a study by a large Dutch insurer—Holland also has a medical marijuana program—that decided to cover the cost of medical marijuana. Based on the results of their own internal study, they found that medical cannabis users, compared with patients with similar conditions, were doing better and had fewer ER visits, fewer doctor visits, and were using fewer pharmaceuticals.