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Medical cannabis access is associated with significant decreases in employees’ healthcare premiums, according to data published in the journal Applied Health Economics and Health Policy.
Researchers affiliated with the medical cannabis technology company Leafwell assessed the relationship between medical cannabis legalization laws and employer-sponsored healthcare premiums over ten years (2003-2022).
They determined, “For states that adopted a medical cannabis law, there was a significant decrease in the … average total premium per employee for single and employee-plus-one coverage plans per year … compared with states without such laws. … Our results are significant as healthcare costs, primarily driven by the cost of premiums, have grown in the past decade or more and account for an increasing proportion of an employer and employees’ budget.”
The authors’ findings are consistent with a 2023 study, which reported that medical cannabis access is associated with “a sizeable and statistically significant reduction in annual per-enrollee premiums of about $1600.”
Authors of the latest study also acknowledged, “Had all 50 states implemented medical cannabis at the same time, employers may have experienced a total savings of $14.9 billion for single coverage plans and $8 billion for employee-plus-one coverage plans in a given year; employees may have seen a total savings of $4.2 billion for single plans and $2.3 billion for employee-plus-one plans in a given year. Under this assumption, medical cannabis laws could have reduced healthcare expenditure GDP by 0.65 percent in 2022 had all states adopted this policy change at the same time.”
They concluded, “Medical cannabis laws … likely decrease the cost of private, employer- sponsored health insurance for both single and employee-plus-one coverage plans. … States should consider these positive externalities associated with medical cannabis legalization when considering whether or not to adopt a medical cannabis law.”
Full text of the study, “Measuring the impact of medical cannabis law adoption on employer-sponsored health insurance costs: A difference-in-difference analysis, 2003-2022,” appears in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy.
