HealthDay News — There is a correlation between a reduction in state-level opioid overdose mortality rates and state-level cannabis laws, according to researchers.
“Because chronic pain is a major indication for medical cannabis, laws that establish access to medical cannabis may change overdose mortality related to opioid analgesics in states that have enacted them,” wrote Marcus A Bachhuber, MD, of the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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In an effort to examine the correlation between the presence of state medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality, the investigators performed a time-series analysis of medical cannabis laws and state-level death certificate data from 1999 to 2010 in all 50 states. Continue Reading Compared with states without medical cannabis laws, states with laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate (P=0.003). In each year after implementation, these laws correlated with a lower rate of overdose mortality that generally strengthened over time (Table 1). |
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Table 1: Rate of change in opioid overdose mortality in states with medical marijuana laws
| Years after medical cannabis law implementation | Change in overdose mortality |
| Year 1 | -19.9% |
| Year 2 | -25.2% |
| Year 3 | −23.6% |
| Year 4 | -20.2% |
| Year 5 | −33.7% |
| Year 6 | -33.3% |
“Further investigation is required to determine how medical cannabis laws may interact with policies aimed at preventing opioid analgesic overdose,” wrote the researchers.
