Access to medical marijuana does not reduce opioid overdoses in US, study finds

US states that allow access to medical marijuana do not, on average, see fewer deaths from opioid poisoning than the rest of the country, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown.1

A 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine made headlines around the world when it found that opioid mortality from 1999 to 2010 was lower in US states that allowed medical marijuana than elsewhere in the country.2 In the following years those findings were often cited by advocates of legalisation, and some states have gone as far as making opioid replacement therapy a potential …