"I got a bunch of weed to help me through the withdrawals": Naturalistic cannabis use reported in online opioid and opioid recovery community discussion forums.

A growing body of research has reported on the potential opioid-sparing effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, but less is known about specific mechanisms. The present research examines cannabis-related posts in two large online communities on the Reddit platform ("subreddits") to compare mentions of naturalistic cannabis use by persons self-identifying as actively using opioids versus persons in recovery. We extracted all posts mentioning cannabis-related keywords (e.g., "weed", "cannabis", "marijuana") from December 2015 through August 2019 from an opioid use subreddit and an opioid recovery subreddit. To investigate how cannabis is discussed at-scale, we identified and compared the most frequent phrases in cannabis-related posts in each subreddit using term-frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) weighting. To contextualize these findings, we also conducted a qualitative content analysis of 200 random posts (100 from each subreddit). Cannabis-related posts were about twice as prevalent in the recovery subreddit (n = 908; 5.4% of 16,791 posts) than in the active opioid use subreddit (n = 4,224; 2.6% of 159,994 posts, p < .001). The most frequent phrases from the recovery subreddit referred to time without using opioids and the possibility of using cannabis as a "treatment." The most frequent phrases from the opioid subreddit referred to concurrent use of cannabis and opioids. The most common motivations for using cannabis were to manage opioid withdrawal symptoms in the recovery subreddit, often in conjunction with anti-anxiety and GI-distress "comfort meds," and to enhance the "high" when used in combination with opioids in the opioid subreddit. Despite limitations in generalizability from pseudonymous online posts, this examination of reports of naturalistic cannabis use in relation to opioid use identified withdrawal symptom management as a common motivation. Future research is warranted with more structured assessments that examines the role of cannabis and cannabinoids in addressing both somatic and affective symptoms of opioid withdrawal.

Increasing Short- and Long-Term Buprenorphine Treatment Capacity: Providing Waiver Training for Medical Students.

In the face of an ongoing opioid crisis in the United States, persistent treatment gaps exist for vulnerable populations. Among the 3 Food and Drug Administration-approved medications used to treat opioid use disorder, many patients prefer buprenorphine. But physicians are currently required to register with the Drug Enforcement Administration and complete 8 hours of qualifying training before they can receive a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine to their patients. In this article, the authors summarize the evolution of buprenorphine waiver training in undergraduate medical education and outline 2 potential paths to increase buprenorphine treatment capacity going forward: the curriculum change approach and the training module approach. As part of the 2018 Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has provided funding for medical schools to adapt their curricula to meet waiver training requirements. To date, however, only one school has had its curriculum approved for this purpose. Additionally, recent political efforts have been directed at eliminating aspects of the waiver training requirement and creating a more direct path to integrating waiver qualification into undergraduate medical education (UME). Other medical schools have adopted a more pragmatic approach involving the integration of existing online, in-person, and hybrid waiver-qualifying training modules into the curricula, generally for fourth-year students. This training module approach can be more rapidly, broadly, and cost-effectively implemented than the curriculum change approach. It can also be easily integrated into the online medical curricula that schools developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately both curricular changes and support for student completion of existing training modules should be pursued in concert, but focus should not be single-mindedly on the former at the expense of the latter.

Maintaining Access to Orthopaedic Surgery During Periods of Operating Room Resource Constraint: Expanded Use of Wide-Awake Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: Wide-awake local anesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) presents a nonstandard anesthetic approach initially described for use in hand surgery that has gained interest and utilization across a variety of orthopaedic procedures. In response to operating room resource constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, our orthopaedic service rapidly adopted and expanded its use of WALANT. METHODS: A retrospective review of 16 consecutive cases performed by 7 surgeons was conducted. Patient demographics, surgical details, and perioperative outcomes were assessed. The primary end point was WALANT failure, defined as intraoperative conversion to general anesthesia. RESULTS: No instances of WALANT failure requiring conversion to general anesthesia occurred. In recovery, one patient (6%) required narcotics for pain control, and the average postoperative pain numeric rating scale was 0.6. The maximum pain score experienced was 4 in the patient requiring postoperative narcotics. The average time in recovery was 42 minutes and ranged from 8 to 118 minutes. CONCLUSION: The WALANT technique was safely and effectively used in 16 cases across multiple orthopaedic subspecialties, including three procedures not previously described in the literature. WALANT techniques hold promise for use in future disaster scenarios and should be evaluated for potential incorporation into routine orthopaedic surgical care.

Unprecedented need and recommendations for harnessing data to guide future policy and practice for opioid use disorder treatment following COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic struck in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic. To offset disruption to life-saving treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), several federal agencies granted exemptions to existing federal regulations. This included loosening restrictions on medications for OUD (MOUD), including methadone and buprenorphine. In this commentary, we briefly review policy and practice guidelines for treating OUD prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We then outline specific MOUD treatment policy and practice exemptions that went into effect in February and March 2020, and discuss the ways in which these unprecedented changes have dramatically changed MOUD treatment. Given the unprecedented nature of these changes, and unknown outcomes to date, we advocate for a data-driven approach to guide future policy and practice recommendations regarding MOUD. We outline several critical clinical, research, and policy questions that can inform MOUD treatment in a post-COVID-19 era.