Tulsi Gabbard on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1170
SUBJECT: HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
There has proven to be a direct correlation to a drastic reduction in opioid related deaths in those states where people have access, again, either to medical or non-medical use of marijuana.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
An early ecological study (Bachhuber et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014) found that U.S. states with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid analgesic overdose mortality rate than states without such laws over 1999-2010; the authors themselves cautioned that a direct causal link could not be established from this aggregate, ecological data. A 2019 replication (Shover et al., PNAS) extended the same methodology through 2017 and found the association had reversed: medical cannabis states showed a 22.7% higher opioid overdose mortality rate, a complete flip from the original -21% estimate. The Shover authors concluded the original correlation was likely spurious, noted medical cannabis users are too small a share of the population to plausibly drive population-level mortality effects, and warned that claims that legalizing medical cannabis reduces opioid deaths "should be met with skepticism." No causal relationship between marijuana access and reduced opioid deaths has been established, and the best current longitudinal evidence contradicts the "drastic reduction" framing.