Adoption of USA state laws legalising cannabis for either medical or adult-use is associated with declines in benzodiazepine prescriptions. Researchers assessed the relationship between legalisation laws and the dispensing of psychotropic medications used to treat mental health disorders in a cross-sectional study of 9,438,716 commercially insured patients.
“Both medical and recreational cannabis policies were consistently associated with reductions in benzodiazepine dispensing” investigators determined. Specifically, the implementation of medical cannabis laws was associated with a 12.4% reduction in the prescription fill rate per 10,000 patients while adult-use legalisation was associated with a 15.2% reduction.
Other studies assessing patients’ use of prescription medications following their initiation of medical cannabis have similarly reported decreases in the use of benzodiazepines.
The study’s authors concluded: “We found that cannabis laws and dispensaries were associated with significant decreases in the dispensing of benzodiazepines in a commercially insured population. … These results have important implications for health outcomes. … Benzodiazepine use can lead to harmful adverse effects, including respiratory depression, which can be fatal. … Thus, if patients are, in fact, reducing their benzodiazepine use to manage their anxiety symptoms with cannabis, this may represent a safer treatment option overall” ...
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26 September, 2024