A new study found that state laws legalizing medicinal and adult-use cannabis play “a significant role” in veterans diagnosed as addicts by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), particularly in older patients.
What Does The Study Say?
According to the study, published by JAMA Psychiatry, “the U.S. national increase in [cannabis use disorder or CUD] diagnoses regardless of state laws underscores a growing need in the VHA and elsewhere to screen for cannabis use and offer evidence-based treatments.”
Cannabis use disorder is “characterized by problematic use, clinically significant distress or impairment, symptoms including tolerance, withdrawal, and neglect of other activities, and psychosocial and health-related problems,” per the researchers.
Based on annual records for VHA patients from 2005 to 2019, public health researchers found that “CUD rates increased from 1.38% to 2.25% in states with no cannabis legalization, 1.38% to 2.54% in states that legalized medical use, and 1.39% to 2.56% in states that legalized recreational use” per the study.
Over that period, recreational marijuana "accounted for 9.8% of the total addiction increase among veterans in states that legalized it for that purpose, while medical marijuana accounted for 4.7% of the surge in states that let doctors prescribe it," reported the Washington Times.
Researchers emphasized the necessity to detect cannabis use and CUD and treat it when it is found to be present.
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