Every year since 2013 the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) has published an annual report that tracks the overall impact of the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state of Colorado. The stated purpose of these reports is to provide data that informs policy makers as they make decisions about marijuana legalization....
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....