Data undermine pot-opioid claim

PROPONENTS of State Question 788, which would legalize “medical” marijuana in Oklahoma, often argue marijuana legalization will reduce opioid abuse. Their argument is that people addicted to painkillers or heroin will switch to marijuana, which they say is better because one cannot overdose on marijuana.

Yet a look at federal data shows no correlation between legal marijuana and lower rates of opioid overdose. Some states with legal marijuana have less of an opioid problem than Oklahoma, but others with legal marijuana have higher overdose rates.

Earlier this year, Madison.com, the website of the Wisconsin State Journal and affiliated newspapers, compiled the federal opioid overdose figures for all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2016 (the most recent year for which data was available).

Oklahoma ranked 31st with an age-adjusted opioid overdose death rate of 11.8 per 100,000 citizens in 2016, according to federal data. During the prior 10 years, Oklahoma’s opioid overdose rate increased 4 percent.

Yet Alaska, which legalized medical marijuana in 1998, has an even higher opioid overdose death rate of 13.5 per 100,000 people — and the overdose rate in that state grew 229 percent in the prior decade.

Voters in Maine legalized medical marijuana by ballot measure in 1999. The opioid overdose death rate in that state hit 25.6 per 100,000 in 2016, ranking eighth-highest in the country. Maine’s opioid overdose rate increased 237 percent during the prior 10 years.

Nevada legalized medical marijuana in 2000. Its opioid overdose rate of 14.8 per 100,000 in 2016 is markedly higher than Oklahoma’s and also higher than when medical marijuana was legalized.

Medical pot has been legal in Vermont since 2004. Its opioid overdose rate hit 18.7 per 100,000 in 2016 and increased 91 percent over the prior decade.

Within 10 years after Rhode Island legalized medical marijuana in 2006, the state’s opioid overdose rate increased 116 percent to 26.8 per 100,000, the nation’s seventh-highest rate.

New Hampshire legalized medical marijuana in 2013. Yet from 2013 to 2016, New Hampshire’s opioid overdose rate tripled, rising to 36.3 people per 100,000, the second-highest rate in the country.

In Massachusetts, marijuana has been legal since 2012. As in New Hampshire, opioid overdose deaths have exploded in frequency since marijuana legalization, rising from around 10 people per 100,000 to 30.2, fifth-highest in the country.

If medical marijuana reduces opioid abuse, then why do so many states with legal medical marijuana have a much higher rate of opioid overdose deaths than Oklahoma? And why did the opioid problem escalate after legalization of medical marijuana in some states?

Admittedly, not every marijuana state has seen such trends. California, which became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, ranked 48th best in the country with 5.2 opioid overdoses per 100,000 people in 2016.

But Texas, which hasn’t legalized medical marijuana, has an even lower opioid overdose rate of 5.1 per 100,000. So pro-marijuana California is doing worse than anti-marijuana Texas in combating opioid addiction.

While legalization of medical marijuana may not be a driver of the opioid problem, neither is it a cure, and Oklahomans shouldn’t be fooled into thinking otherwise.