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The savings, due to lower prescription drug use, were estimated to be $165.2 million in 2013, a year when 17 states and the District of Columbia had implemented medical marijuana laws. The results suggest that if all states had implemented medical marijuana the overall savings to Medicare would have been around $468 million. Compared to Medicare Part D's 2013 budget of $103 billion, those savings would have been 0.5 percent. But it's enough of a difference to show that, in states where it's legal, some people are turning to the drug as an alternative to prescription medications for ailments that range from pain to sleep disorders. Because medical marijuana is such a hot-button issue, explained study co-author W. David Bradford, who is the Busbee Chair in Public Policy in the UGA School of Public and International Affairs, their findings can give policymakers and others another tool to evaluate the pros and cons of medical marijuana legalization. "We realized th...

Though Wang cautions that we're nonetheless a good distance from testing this in people, in idea, if we may sometime use medicine or electrical stimulation or another technique of activating the D2 neurons--these so-called "no-go" neurons--then we would be capable of stop alcoholics from wanting one other drink. Credit score: © arinahabich / Fotolia By activating specific neurons, we could possibly affect alcohol consuming conduct, in line with new findings printed by researchers on the Texas A&M Well being Science Middle School of Medication within the journal  Organic Psychiatry . The group's prior analysis confirmed that alcohol consumption alters the bodily construction and performance of neurons, referred to as medium spiny neurons, within the dorsomedial striatum. Basically, they discovered that activation of 1 kind of neuron, referred to as D1, determines whether or not one drink results in two. Now, they've found those that i...