Washington (AFP)
US states where recreational cannabis is legal have seen at least a 20% reduction in opioid overdose deaths, a study released on Wednesday said.
Opiates have killed 47,600 people in 2017 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). That year, the epidemic was declared a "public health emergency" by President Donald Trump.
Marijuana, legal in 34 states and in Washington for therapeutic use, is recreational in ten of these states, as well as in the US capital (and in January in Illinois).
By comparing the rates of overdose deaths before and after legalization and between states at different stages of the legalization process, the authors of this study published in the journal Economic Inquiry, determined a "very strong" causal effect in reducing opiate-related mortality.
This decline is between 20 and 35%, according to their econometric analysis, with a particularly pronounced effect for the deaths caused by the consumption of opiates such as fentanyl, the most deadly drug in the United States, according to the latest official figures.
All states are affected by the rise of the opiate epidemic, says Nathan Chan, an economist at Amherst University and lead author of the study.
"It's just that those states that have legalized are not as adversely affected as those who have not legalized," he continues.
States that have legal access to marijuana through clinics have seen a greater decline in mortality than others, the authors note.
The study did not examine the factors involved, but Nathan Chan suggests that these differences could be related to the growing number of self-careers who "relieve pain through marijuana use and are thus less likely to become addicted to opiates ".
Previous work, however, had come to the opposite conclusion: according to them, the use of cannabis increases the use of opioids not prescribed by prescription.
© 2019 AFP