By RFD Radio/WFMB
SPRINGFIELD – A medical marijuana dispensary is highlighting the impacts they have seen and been told about by clients who are now using their product to manage pain.
HCI Alternatives of Springfield and Collinsville is placing billboards around the state to share the story of a number of clients who stopped using prescribed opiates after finding medical marijuana.
CEO Chris Stone said personal stories are the basis of all the billboards.
“It’s one of the reasons why we take your life back with medical cannabis,” Stone said. “It actually came from our patients telling us how they have been able to get their life back by removing the opiate-based painkillers from their medical program.”
Stone shared the story of a veteran who was taking prescription opiates.
“He moved all of them from his program and simply takes cannabis twice a day to be able to provide him with some effects without these harmful side effects,” Stone said.
A 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that states with medical marijuana laws had a 25 percent reduction in fatal opioid overdoses.