People Who Live
in states with legalized medical marijuana are more likely to use and abuse marijuana, study suggests.
USA Today (4/26, Hughes) reports people who live in states that have “legalized medical marijuana are more likely to use and abuse cannabis than people” who live in states that have not legalized medical marijuana, according to a study published online April 26 in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers found that the number of people using marijuana “without a doctor’s note” as well as the number of people with a marijuana use disorder both increased in states with legalized medical marijuana from 2001 to 2013. The article mentions that the study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Reuters (4/26, Seaman) reports in an accompanying editorial, Dr. Wilson Compton and others at the National Institute on Drug Abuse “say policymakers need to understand which parts of medical marijuana laws are tied with positive and negative effects.”
