According to the Journal of the National Medical Association opioid mortality trends in the United States, a world leader in both opioid mortality and cannabis use disorder, do not support the hypothesis that marijuana availability reduces opioid mortality. During the past decade, the country’s opioid mortality trends in marijuana legalising and non-legalising jurisdictions suggest the opposite. The United States opioid mortality rate was compared in states and District of Columbia that had implemented marijuana legalisation with states that had not. Instead of supporting the marijuana protection hypothesis, ecologic associations at the national level suggest that marijuana legalisation has contributed to the U.S.’s opioid epidemic.
