Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

1-30-2019

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; PSN Subject Matter eJournals; HEN Subject Matter eJournals; Political Economy - Comparative eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Health Economics Network; Political Science Network; Health Law eJournals; Political Economy - Development eJournals

Abstract

While recent research has shown that cannabis access laws can reduce the use of prescription opioids the effect of these laws on opioid use is not well understood for all dimensions of use and for the general United States population Analyzing a dataset of over 13 billion individual opioid prescriptions between 2011 and 2017 which were aggregated to the individual provideryear level we find that recreational and medical cannabis access laws reduce the number of morphine milligram equivalents prescribed each year by 69 and 61 percent respectively These laws also reduce the total days supply of opioids prescribed the total number of patients receiving opioids and the probability a provider prescribes any opioids net of any offsetting effects Additionally we find consistent evidence that cannabis access laws have different effects across types of providers and physician specialties

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