The study, funded by the federal government, shows that the decrease in the self-reported treatment of cannabis use disorder has been concentrated in the states where marijuana is legal.
The authors concluded that factors such as the decline in referrals for “legally mandated” or “coerced” treatment through the criminal justice system, and the way CUD is identified and defined could have a significant impact on the reductions.
Researchers used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which is conducted by SAMHSA annually. The researchers noted that CUD treatment rates in the U.S. decreased between 2002 and 2019. “Yet structural mechanisms behind this decrease are poorly understand.”
Researchers analyzed state-level cannabis legislation and treatment of cannabis use disorders from 2004 to 2019. They found that between 2004 and 2014 states with medical cannabis law (MCL) saw a reduction in specialty CUD treatment prevalence by 1,35 points. This drop increased to 2,15 points once dispensaries started legal sales. Medical marijuana laws did not reduce CUD treatment rates from 2015 to 2019. The lower rates of CUD treatment were also associated with recreational cannabis laws.
The authors conclude that while only MCL with cannabis-dispensary provisions was associated with a decrease in specialty CUD treatments among people with CUD but both MCL and the RCL were also associated with a reduction in treatment for people who need CUD treatment. This included people without CUD reporting past-year special treatment.
The states that have cannabis dispensary laws are the ones with the highest reductions in CUD treatments.
Researchers from Columbia University and other institutions, including the Rutgers Institute for Health in New Jersey, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the University of Arizona, made up the nine-author team. The National Institute on Drug Abuse supported the study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
The findings of the new study are in line with SAMHSA’s data, released late last year. This indicates that the states where cannabis is illegal have the highest rate of admissions to treatment for this drug. This report, which was based on data from 2021 found that “self-referral” was the most common method of referral to treatment. The criminal justice system was the second most common, but the procedures varied greatly by state.
In a separate study published in September based on SAMHSA statistics, it was found that the number of referrals to marijuana-related treatment decreased more quickly after states legalized cannabis. The study concluded that this trend was likely due to fewer arrests related to cannabis among those aged 18-24 years.
This study, which examined data from 2008 through 2019, found that referrals by the criminal justice system to treatment for cannabis-use disorder were already declining nationally – both in terms of proportion and raw numbers – even in states where marijuana was not legal. In states where marijuana was legalized for adults, referral rates to treatment from the criminal justice system dropped faster.
The authors of the study found complex interactions between the medical and adult-use marijuana laws and the CUD treatment rate.
The authors found that MCLs without cannabis dispensary provisions are associated with lower CUD specialty treatment for people with CUD in the past year, but MCLs as well as RCLs are associated with lower CUD specialty treatment when defining CUD need more broadly. The authors concluded that cannabis policy-related reductions of CUD treatment for people with CUD are concentrated in states that have cannabis dispensary provisions. These reductions were also observed in RCLs when people not meeting past-year CUD criteria were included.
They added that “CUD treatment usage remained low across policy exposures and years, indicating an unmet CUD need in the US.”
There are several possible explanations. For example, in states that have legalized marijuana, there are fewer arrests of cannabis users. This means fewer referrals by courts to drug treatment. The authors concluded that future studies should examine whether changes in cannabis laws lead to a reduction in mandatory treatment without CUD. This could be achieved by reducing the subjective drug court eligibility determinations, or through other forms of criminal exposure.
The report states that “recent evidence from 2 cities shows public consumption arrested increased in certain cities after legalization”, referring to a separate 2023 study. “This suggests ongoing criminal legal exposure” in areas where adult cannabis use is legal. Although outside the scope of our study, changes in cannabis policies may be related to drug courts using best practices and validated eligibility assessment tool to avoid “subjective suitability decisions,” which could lead to a decrease in mandated treatment for people without CUD.
Another study published late last year found that states with legal marijuana had lower rates of cannabis use disorder cases in emergency departments compared to non-legal states. A study published in late 2013 found that states that legalized marijuana had lower rates of cannabis use disorder cases at emergency departments than states where cannabis is still illegal.
In a 2019 study, the rate of CUD has decreased in the wake of the state-level legalization.
A growing body of research, including a study by the American Medical Association in September, has found that youth marijuana use is actually decreasing as more and more states are replacing prohibition systems with regulated recreational sales to adults.
In 2022, a separate study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that state-level marijuana legalization was not associated with an increase in youth use. This study found that adolescents who had spent more time in legalization during their adolescence were not more or less likely than those who did not.
Another federally-funded study by Michigan State University, published in PLOS One 2022, found that cannabis retail sales could be followed in some states by an increase in cannabis onsets among older adults. “But this is not true for minors who are prohibited from buying cannabis products at a retail outlet.”
Marijuana Study Comparing U.S. And Canada Finds Broad Legalization Support And Similar Use Rates Despite Differing National Policies
The post Study: Declining Treatment Rates for Cannabis Use Disorder Concentrated in States with Legal Marijuana Sale first appeared on Marijuana moment.
