Public Administration & Policy Alumna, Ashley Bradford, Public Administration & Policy Faculty Dr. David Bradford and Dr. Amanda Abraham, and Health Policy & Management Assistant Professor, Dr. Grace Bagwell Adams wrote an article titled “Association Between US State Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Prescribing in the Medicare Part D Population,” which appeared in the May 2018 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This article was just rated the 3rd most talked about JAMA Internal Medicine article of 2018 by Altmetric.

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According to their study, states that have approved medical cannabis laws saw a dramatic reduction in opioid use. They examined the number of all opioid prescriptions filled between 2010 and 2015 under Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit plan available to Medicare enrollees. In states with medical cannabis dispensaries, the researchers observed a 14.4 percent reduction in use of prescription opioids and nearly a 7 percent reduction in opiate prescriptions filled in states with home-cultivation-only medical cannabis laws.

You can read more about the article here or you can access the full article here.