Medical marijuana laws and mental health in the United States

Jörg Kalbfuß, Reto Odermatt and Alois Stutzer

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The consequences of legal access to medical marijuana for individual welfare are a matter of controversy. We contribute to the ongoing discussion by evaluating the impact of the staggered introduction and extension of medical marijuana laws across US states on self-reported mental health. Our main analysis is based on BRFSS survey data from more than six million respondents between 1993 and 2015. On average, we find that medical marijuana laws lead to a reduction in the self-reported number of days with mental health problems. Reductions are largest for individuals with high propensities to consume marijuana for medical purposes and people who are likely to suffer from chronic pain. Moreover, the introduction of prescription drug monitoring programs lead to a reduction in bad mental health days only in states that allow medical marijuana.

Keywords: medical marijuana laws; cannabis regulation; mental health; chronic pain; prescription drug monitoring (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I12 I18 I31 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88697/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Medical marijuana laws and mental health in the United States (2024)
Working Paper: Medical marijuana laws and mental health in the United States (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:88697

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().