A friend of mine had major surgery and was out for a few months. They used cbd cartridges from a legal dispensary to reduce the use of opioid pain meds. They had the blessing of their doctor. If you go to a legal dispensary and ask for cbd for pain, it usually has a small percentage of thc. Look up "entourage effect of cbd/thc". My friend used the 10 to 1 cbd/thc vape cartridges for about 6 weeks after surgery while using much smaller amounts of prescribed opioids. 5-10 puffs a day. It also comes in other forms like lozenges and oil. When you are done with pain mitigation, You can go to Walmart and buy a THC drug test kit for $12. Pee in the cup after 5 mins you will know if you pass. Don't go to work till you pass. If you don't pass, wait a week and do it again. I've read it can 4-6 weeks of being pot free for chronic users of regular pot which has high thc to pass a pee test. Watch the last CNN episode "Weed 4" for some current info on medical use of pot.
It works and opioids can be very bad. No one has died from a pot OD. But I think it will be years before the feds will loosen the control of it. AG Jeff Sessions is a big obstacle right now. I'm sure Big Pharma lobbyists are against it too.