Meta-Analysis: Studies Refute Claims That Medical Cannabis Access...

One of the reasons given for measures like the so-called terminal patients access program (which it won’t end up being even for the terminally ill due to design defects in the bills) is that an actual program will be disruptive to society.

And, as is so often used in debates, opponents are claiming that a key reason “we can’t allow marijuana” into “society” (as if cannabis hasn’t been readily available on the black market for many decades), is the need to continue prohibition “for the sake of the children.”

This new meta-analysis of many studies dating back to 1991 shows that this argument is off the mark and factually inaccurate….

“The enactment of statewide laws regulating the use and distribution of cannabis for medical purposes is not associated with increased marijuana use among young people, according to a review of relevant studies published online ahead of print in the journal Addiction.

Investigators from Columbia University, the RAND Corporation, the University of California at Davis, and the Boston School of Public Health reviewed 11 studies developed from four ongoing national surveys. The studies were published between the years 1991 and 2014. None of the studies identified any significant changes in youth use patterns that could be attributable to changes in marijuana’s legal status.

The authors concluded: ‘All estimates of pre–post changes in past-month marijuana use within MML (medical marijuana law) states from these studies were non-significant. … In summary, current evidence does not support the hypothesis that MML passage is associated with increased marijuana use prevalence among adolescents in states that have passed such laws’.”

Yet another opponent’s argument which can be tossed in the trash…

Meta-Analysis: Studies Refute Claims That Medical Cannabis Access…