Aug 25, 2014 11:42 PM EDT By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Medical Marijuana could be an antidote to "for the nation's scourge of fatal overdoses caused by prescription pain medication," the Los Angeles Times reported.

Researchers found that after states that have legalized medical marijuana deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs decreased dramatically. Compared to states with no formal access to marijuana, the 23 states that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33 percent after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect.

Investigators believe people suffering from chronic pains tend to rely on medical marijuana when they have that option, which reduces the risk of addiction and overdose that accompanies use of prescription pain medication.

"We think that people with chronic pain may be choosing to treat their pain with marijuana rather than with prescription painkillers, in states where this is legal," Dr. Marcus Bachhuber, lead author of the study and a researcher with the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, told HealthDay.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to determine the narcotic medication overdose death rate for each state between 1999 and 2010, and then took into account whether and when each state had passed a medical marijuana law.

According to the CDC, overdose deaths from prescription painkillers have skyrocketed over the past two decades, increasing 118 percent between 1999 and 2011.

Although overdose deaths have risen in all states, researchers found that the annual average number of deaths caused by painkillers is nearly 25 percent less in states with medical marijuana laws.

"In absolute terms, states with a medical marijuana law had about 1,700 fewer opioid painkiller overdose deaths in 2010 than would be expected based on trends before the laws were passed," Bachhuber said.

The findings were recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

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