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Patients suffering from chronic health conditions, particularly chronic pain, report improvements in their mental health following the adoption of medical marijuana access laws, according to data published in the journal Health Economics, Policy, and Law.
Researchers from Switzerland and the United Kingdom assessed the relationship between state-level medical marijuana laws and patients’ self-reported mental health over a 26-year period (1993-2018).
Investigators reported, “Eased access to marijuana through medical marijuana laws reduce the reported number of days with poor mental health for individuals [who] consume marijuana for medical purposes and for those individuals who likely suffer from frequent pain.”
State laws permitting patients to home-cultivate medical cannabis and allowing its use for a wide range of pain conditions were associated with the most significant improvements.
The study’s authors concluded: “Overall, our results are in line with the hypothesis that MMLs [medical marijuana laws] benefit those individuals for whom they are nominally designed without systematically harming other groups.”
Full text of the study, “Marijuana laws and mental health in the United States,” appears in Health Economics, Policy, and Law. Additional information on the use of cannabis for chronic pain is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids.
