A new report has found that medical marijuana could cost Big Pharma billions of dollars if it becomes a legal part of the healthcare industry.
A report by New Frontier Data has predicted that legal use of cannabis products for ailments such as chronic pain and seizures, could end up costing Big Pharma, the marketers of modern medicine, around $4 billion annually.
A study released in 2016 from the University of Georgia was the basis of the report which showed that Medicare prescriptions decreased in states that legally allowed medicinal cannabis.
The Washington Post was the first to outline the study and even shed light on medical marijuana, in respect to those drugs for which it is considered an alternative treatment, has been costing pill manufactures almost $166 million a year.
According to New Frontier researchers, the areas that will see the most damage if medical marijuana becomes a ligit part of the medical industry would be anxiety, chronic pain, epilepsy, sleep disorders, nerve pain, chemo-therapy induced nausea, glaucoma, PTSD, and Tourette syndrome.
John Kagia, executive vice president of industry analytics for New Frontier, said, “The impact of medical cannabis legalization is not going to be enormously disruptive to the pharmaceutical industry.”
