Marijuana legalisation reduces opioid deaths: Study

Marijuana use need not always be bad. In fact, researches have found that recreational marijuana can cut down opioid-related deaths.

The study published in the journal 'Economic Inquiry' examined how the changing legal status of marijuana has impacted mortality in the United States over the past two decades.

Investigators found that legalisation and access to recreational marijuana reduced annual opioid mortality in the range of 20 per cent to 35 per cent, with particularly pronounced effects for synthetic opioids.

The research extends prior findings that medical marijuana laws reduce opioid mortality rates. The findings are timely given the scale of the opioid epidemic in the United States and growing calls for marijuana legalisation throughout North America.

"Recreational marijuana laws affect a much larger population than medical marijuana laws, yet we know relatively little about their effects. Focusing on the recent wave of recreational marijuana laws in the U.S., we find that opioid mortality rates drop when recreational marijuana becomes widely available via dispensaries," said the co-author of the study, Nathan W. Chan.