Abstract
Purpose of Review: This review summarizes studies examining impacts of medical and recreational cannabis laws on opioid prescribing, opioid use, opioid use disorder, opioid-related service utilization, and opioid-involved mortality. We also discuss research challenges and recommendations for future work. Recent Findings: Twenty-one US-based studies published between 2014 and 2021 that assessed state cannabis laws’ association with opioid-related outcomes were reviewed. Study results were largely inconclusive. We identified six challenges of existing work: (1) inability to directly measure cannabis/opioid substitution; (2) use of general population samples and lack of individual-level longitudinal studies; (3) challenges disentangling effects of cannabis laws from other state laws; (4) methodological challenges with staggered policy implementation; (5) limited consideration of cannabis law provisions; (6) lack of triangulation across data sources. Summary: While existing research suggests the potential for cannabis laws to reduce high-risk opioid prescribing and other opioid-related adverse outcomes, studies should be interpreted in light of limitations.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 538-545 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Current Addiction Reports |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2021 |
Keywords
- Medical cannabis laws
- Opioid overdose
- Opioid prescribing
- Opioid use
- Recreational cannabis laws
- State cannabis laws
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health