Contribution of Marijuana Legalization to the U.S. Opioid Mortality Epidemic: Individual and Combined Experience of 27 States and District of Columbia by Archie Bleyer MD of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon and the McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas & Brian Barnes, CSWA, MAC, CADC and PhD Student of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California

The co-authors of this recently released study used opioid mortality data obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compare opioid death rate trends in each marijuana-legalizing state and the District of Columbia prior to and after medicinal and recreational legalization implementation with associated trends in non-legalizing states. 78% of legalizing jurisdictions showed a statistically significant acceleration of opioid death rates after legalization implementation at greater rates than the pre-legalization rate or the concurrent rate in non-legalizing states. Click here to read the entire report and its conclusions.