Prescription drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. Alternatives to opioids for the treatment of pain are necessary tonight we will talk about this issue, MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND AMPUTEES.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention report that “[o]pioids (including prescription opioid pain relievers and heroin) killed more than 28,000 people in 2014, more than any year on record.” Unfortunately, this statistic has done little to curb the prescribing and consumption patterns for prescription opioids. The CDC estimates that “since 1999, the number of prescription opioids sold in the United States nearly quadrupled, yet there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain that Americans report.