New CDC: Drug overdose rates in the era of legalized marijuana.

CDC data for death rates, and Wikipedia data for state laws. | Dangus

[dangus]

Does legalized marijuana prevent people from turning towards more dangerous drugs, like opioids, to manage pain and withdrawal? Or does marijuana continue to act as a "gateway" drug, even after obtaining it no longer requires someone to enter into a shady underworld?

The CDC just released its summation of 2018 deaths due to drug overdoses. (THIS IS FOR ALL OVERDOSES, NOT MARIJUANA OVERDOSES; I'm looking at how marijuana relates to overdoses from other drugs!) When I saw that death rates from drug overdoses (largely due to opioids, but with cocaine and other drugs playing an increasing role) had declined for the first time in decades last year, I decided to see whether legalized marijuana correlated to declining overdose rates.

California seemed the most relevant, since that states allowed recreational use of marijuana for the first time in 2018. (The voter initiative doing so passed in 2016.) Contrary to the national trend, the number of overdose deaths in California spiked 9.4%. Given the large, culturally and geographically diverse nature of California, this a huge increase.

Also in 2018, Missouri became legalized "medical" marijuana, but defined that concept so broadly and allowed in-home cultivation, essentially making any law enforcement or control of the market by criminal gangs impossible. Drug overdoses spiked 17.52%. Vermont is such a small state that you can't make too much out of wild swings in the overdose death rate, but it saw a seeming large but technically insignificant increase in deaths (up 14.66%). The death rate also rose in Massachusetts (4.4%), which had legalized recreational marijuana starting in 2017, and which has one of the highest overdose rates in the nation (more than 50% above average).

[Laws liberalizing marijuana in North Carolina, New York and Oklahoma had not yet taken effect; both of these saw declines consistent with the national average (-7.05%, -5.15%, -4.2% and -8.4% respectively). Michigan saw a similar modest decrease; it's liberalizing law took effect in the second half of 2018.]

It's difficult to learn as much from states which had slightly less recently legalized marijuana. Legal marijuana first became available in Maine and Ohio in 2017. Both states saw sharp increases in the overdose death rate that year, but so did nearly the entire nation. Both declined this year. All of the states with the highest overdose death rates had legalized at least some marijuana, but not all of the states with legalized marijuana were among those with the highest death rates. California, for instance, despite its sharp increases after legalizing recreational marijuana, still has a fairly low overdose death rate.

To conclude: The assertion that legalized marijuana worsens overdose death rates for other drugs may be difficult to assert merely looking at changes in death rates after recent legalizations. There are too many other factors which may be at play in the various states. But the claim that legalized marijuana has near-term positive effects on such death rates seems contradicted by the such evidence, to the extent that any such evidence is meaningful.

SOURCES

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db356.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction including links to the policies of individual states.

[Ken H]

dangus: Alaska HAD one of the lowest overdose rates in 2010... Now, it’s one of the highest.

________

The numbers say otherwise. Your link shows that Alaska was one of the states where the death rate actually fell in 2018 compared to 2017 - and its rate in 2017 was below the national average*. Also, from the CDC table I posted, you can see that AK was below the national average in 2010-2016.

So where are you getting that Alaska has one of the highest rates in the country?

______

*”In 2017, there were 102 overdose deaths involving opioids in Alaska —a rate of 13.9 deaths per 100,000 persons compared to the average national rate of 14.6 deaths per 100,000 persons.”

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state/alaska-opioid-summary

[A Navy Vet]

"Regardless of your anecdotes, the DEA said in 2016 that pot is not a gateway drug."

I don't care what a fedgov agency reports. I saw first hand pot users graduate to harder drugs. Go to any homeless encampment and ask the addicts if they started on coke, meth, or heroin first. No, they almost always started on pot or alcohol which leads to lack of ambition and the inability to function within societal norms. I feel bad for the mentally ill, but many are just bums who want no responsibility.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

No, they almost always started on pot or alcohol which leads to lack of ambition and the inability to function within societal norms.

I'd be willing to bet they all started smoking cigarettes first, then moved onto other drugs, such as pot and/or booze.

[A Navy Vet]

Don’t think I would include cigarettes as a gateway drug.

[NobleFree]

the DEA said in 2016 that pot is not a gateway drug.

I don't care what a fedgov agency reports. I saw first hand pot users graduate to harder drugs.

So if ANY pot user EVER moved on to harder drugs, pot is a gateway?

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Don’t think I would include cigarettes as a gateway drug.

I would. It's physically addictive and it's mood-altering.

If you were to ask, most started smoking as kids stealing cigarettes from their parents. It was their first 'high.'

[TheStickman]

Thanks for the ping.

I’ve been using Cannabis daily for 5 years. Still have zero desire to use or even consider using other drugs. When I started using cannabis I was severely obese & mentally ill.
Since I began using cannabis I lost 116 lbs over 4 years & all my mental illness symptoms.