Legalizing cannabis was always going to be a controversial move. After decades of prohibition and anti-marijuana propaganda, drug reform activists had a difficult task at hand, and opponents to drug reform did not make their jobs any easier.
While cannabis advocates said that decriminalizing cannabis would reduce incarceration rates for nonviolent drug offenses, create plenty of new jobs and generate tax revenue for states, opponents argued that doing so would open a Pandora’s box with untold consequences on society. They said that allowing cannabis sales would increase drug usage among teens, boost criminal activity, lead to an overall decline in mental health and increase suicide rates.
However, now that more than two-thirds of American states have legalized medical marijuana and 18 states allow recreational use, it is becoming more apparent that the fears of opponents were unfounded. As the states began allowing cannabis sales, initial studies found that cannabis reform did not have the detrimental effects that reform challengers feared.
According to a new study conducted by researchers from several institutions, there is no association between cannabis legalization and cases of increased mental illness or suicide. In fact, interestingly, the study found that cannabis legalization laws were associated with a 6.29% decrease in suicide rates among American males aged 40-49. Furthermore, cannabis has shown great promise in treating the symptoms of conditions such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, although further evidence is needed to say this conclusively.
This new study involved researchers from Yale Law School, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Reason Foundation, Cato Institute and other institutions. These organizations wanted to evaluate whether the results of a 2013 study that looked at the correlation between cannabis legalization and mental illness were still accurate now that initial cannabis markets are maturing, and more states have launched their own cannabis markets.
To do so, the researchers performed a “state-level longitudinal analysis” using suicide rates provided by the National Center for Health Statistics as well as mental health morbidity rates from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The data used in the study had been collected from 1999–2019 and covered all 50 states and Washington DC. The researchers concluded that aside from the 6.29% reduction in suicide rates among males aged 40–49 years, cannabis legalization did not have any other mental health outcomes. The study is still undergoing peer review and is slated for publication.
Future studies on cannabis compounds could greatly benefit from the data analytics tools and plant medicine devices invented by RYAH Group Inc. (CSE: RYAH) given that those virtual tools aggregate significant research data.
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