Posted on 01/30/2020 8:14:28 AM PST by 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.
That doesn't mean they would do other drugs if pot were illegal (and enforced).
I’m talking about potheads.
But because of their other drug use they would be described more as speed freaks or junkies even though they used pot most regularly.
Most dope smokers will also do white powders or pills at times, not necessarily regularly. Say weekends socially.
Of those some increase use of opiates or stimulants and may become addicts.
Others, perhaps a greater percentage grow out of the use of more physically dangerous drugs and move in to an adulthood where they just smoke pot. That’s probably the phase of life of the people you know is my guess.
Agreed. But the enforced part is a joke. I think my 87 year old mother would know where to get pot :-)
How many users of other drugs used to smoke pot in the past?
A lot of pot users also abuse alcohol.
Alcohol - the first gateway drug
“A lot of pot users also abuse alcohol.”
Definitely.
A lot of people like to get what’s called F***ed-up.
It’s amazing what the body can get used to and then expect as normalcy.
I’m only talking about three people so I guess it’s hard to make a universal judgment on that number :-)
I grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood and there was about 20 of us and one used a lot of pot and a couple used Coke but it died out very early except for the pothead. I’d say 18 out of 20 didn’t do drugs. Maybe pot a few times. We did do a lot of drinking though in our youth
“entheogen”
Entheogen? The God within. Lol.
We can see where you’re coming from Timothy Terrence McKenna O’Leary.
Probably a lot.
I should have defined pothead apart from pot user. These are guys that are smoking 10 or 20 years or more and it’s all they do.
Probably a lot of people that have tried pot moved on to something else.
I smoked pot maybe a dozen times but never touched anything else. Those other things are brutal. I did drink a lot
“Alcohol is easily the drug most commonly associated with criminal offenses.”
I believe if you check the crime data, you’ll find alcohol is at least a contributing factor in the overwhelming percentage of homicide, domestic violence, rape and assault cases. Yet it’s promoted and advertised almost without restriction.
I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s in San Francisco. Drug use was common.
That would be consistent with my over 30 year experience in the criminal justice system.
“NOT MARIJUANA OVERDOSES”
Well because you cant?
Maybe you will eat yourself a mess of doritos. That isnt good for you for sure.
Feeling mellow yellow...
quite righteously...
While I don't buy your very very very special gift from God, I do commend you on spelling LSD correctly. Let me understand your God thing better.
He/She gives us this special gift so we can escape reality and lay about and laugh and devour mass quantities, but He/She doesn't stop a bus full of children from going over a clift or a tsunami from wiping out thousands? So God is somewhere enjoying his toke and laughing his ass off? Wonder if he bogarts with the Angels. But then, the Angels may have some roaches lying around in heaven.
Regardless, the DEA said in 2016 that pot is not a gateway drug.
From: Marijuana to remain illegal under federal law, DEA says:
On other points, the DEA report noted marijuana has a "high potential" for abuse and can result in psychological dependence. It said around 19 million individuals in the U.S. used marijuana monthly in 2012 and that contemporaneous studies showed around 4.3 million individuals met diagnostic criteria for marijuana dependence.
It did not find, however, that marijuana is a "gateway drug."
"Little evidence supports the hypothesis that initiation of marijuana use leads to an abuse disorder with other illicit substances," the report said.
“To flip what you said, I’ve never known any druggies who didn’t start out on pot.”
I’ve never known any druggies who didn’t start out on booze.
While it’s not the US, there are some stats from Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/then-now-portugals-drug-decriminalization
“I’ve never known any druggies who didn’t start out on booze.”
This is also true, but what are the odds that an absolute tee-totaler would leap to an illicit drug?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.