Federal Government Tells Doctors Not to Test for Marijuana

As a feature of its arrangement to change the healthcare community’s high-handed disposition towards the conveyance of risky painkillers, the federal government has told doctors over the United States to quit testing their patients for cannabis. A week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discharged a redesigned set of rules for recommending opioids to patients experiencing incessant torment.

Covered inside the dialect of this endeavor to put a chain on the remedy painkiller plague, the CDC encouraged specialists to alter their medication screening strategies with an end goal to keep those testing positive for THC metabolites from being precluded from treatment. In spite of the fact that the office wrote that it trusts pee testing is important to find any “undisclosed use” of unlawful substances, it particularly expresses this rule no more applies to THC.

“Clinicians should not test for substances for which results would not affect patient management or for which implications for patient management are unclear,” the statement reads. “For example, experts noted that there might be uncertainty about the clinical implications of a positive urine drug test for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).”

Albeit passing a drug test is not, for the most part, an essential for a prescription for painkillers, patients who wind up going through the passageway from the family specialist to a pain management clinic are frequently held to a higher standard with a specific end goal to keep getting these solutions. Normally, these patients are required to test free of any illicit substances, including restorative cannabis, before being permitted to take an interest and proceed with a pain treatment plan.

“Clinicians should not dismiss patients from care based on a urine drug test result because this could constitute patient abandonment and could have adverse consequences for patient safety, potentially including the patient obtaining opioids from alternative sources and the clinician missing opportunities to facilitate treatment for substance use disorder,” the CDC writes.