One other federally funded research is suggesting that marijuana legalization could also be linked to a “substitution impact,” with younger adults in California “considerably” lowering their use of alcohol and cigarettes after the hashish reform was enacted.
What’s extra, the analysis appeared to contradict prohibitionist arguments in regards to the potential influence of legalization, as the information additionally revealed no vital enhance in marijuana use amongst younger adults who have been nonetheless not of age to entry retail dispensaries—although there have been fascinating modifications in sure modes of consuming hashish following the coverage change.
The research, printed within the Journal of Psychoactive Medicine final week, concerned surveys of individuals aged 18-20 residing in Los Angeles earlier than and after the state carried out adult-use marijuana legalization beneath a 2016 voter initiative. One cohort of 172 pre-legalization topics have been interviewed between 2014 and 2015, and the opposite 139 post-legalization topics have been surveyed between 2019 and 2020.
Researchers mentioned that, “regardless of the probabilities of elevated entry to hashish by way of diversion from the grownup use market and elevated normalization of hashish use,” legalizing leisure marijuana “didn’t result in elevated frequency of hashish use” among the many topics. They did discover a shift towards using edibles post- adult-use legalization (AUL), nevertheless.
“Concerning different licit substance use, we noticed considerably fewer days of alcohol and cigarette use among the many [post-legalization] cohort in comparison with the [pre-legalization] cohort,” the research says. This implies the “risk of a protecting impact supplied by hashish, together with edibles, or doubtlessly ongoing modifications in norms and attitudes towards these substances inside this socio-historical context.”
“Decrease frequency of alcohol and tobacco use coupled with enhance in edibles use post-AUL might counsel a substitution impact, which might end result from growing entry to hashish by means of a medical hashish advice or diversion of hashish from medical or grownup use hashish dispensaries,” the researchers mentioned.
The research, which was funded by the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, additionally discovered that modifications in using illicit and prescribed drugs “didn’t considerably differ” between pre-legalization and post-legalization cohorts, which the researchers mentioned is “notable since some critics predicted that AUL would result in elevated different drug use” by way of the so-called “gateway idea.”
“Future research ought to monitor whether or not secure charges of hashish use and declines in alcohol and cigarette use shall be sustained as some individuals attain authorized age to entry these substances for grownup use, and the way these tendencies proceed or alter as individuals enter later rising maturity,” the study concludes.
Whereas one of many limitations of the research is the truth that individuals beneath 21 can’t legally buy alcohol or tobacco, the findings relating to a potential substitution impact have been echoed in quite a few research protecting totally different jurisdictions throughout the nation, a minimum of with regards to different substances akin to opioids.
For instance, legalizing medical marijuana is related to a “decrease frequency” of nonprescribed pharmaceutical opioid use, in keeping with a research printed this month within the Worldwide Journal of Psychological Well being and Dependancy.
In August, a federally funded research discovered that marijuana was considerably related to decreased opioid cravings for individuals utilizing them with out a prescription, suggesting that increasing entry to authorized hashish might present extra individuals with a safer substitute.
A separate research printed final month discovered that authorized entry to CBD merchandise led to vital reductions in opioid prescriptions, with state-level drops of between 6.6 % and eight.1 % fewer prescriptions.
A report from this summer time, in the meantime, linked medical marijuana use to decrease ache ranges and decreased dependence on opioids and different prescription drugs. One other, printed by the American Medical Affiliation (AMA) in February, discovered that power ache sufferers who acquired medical marijuana for longer than a month noticed vital reductions in prescribed opioids.