In response to claims by some critics of marijuana legalization that regular use might increase the risk of mental illness or suicide, my colleagues and I sought to determine if 2013 research by Anderson, et al finding no such relationship in states that had legalized medicinal marijuana was still valid in 2021, by which time 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use and medicinal marijuana is available in 35 states. We performed a state-level longitudinal analysis using suicide rates from the National Center for Health Statistics and mental health morbidity rates from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health following the procedures outlined by Anderson et al.
We found that recreational marijuana access was associated with a 6.29 percent reduction in suicide rates for males aged 40 to 49, but no other mental health outcomes were otherwise affected by liberalization of marijuana laws.
The “pre-print” of our study is now available for viewing at medRxiv. It is currently awaiting peer review for publication in a major scientific journal.
Jeffrey Singer
Jeffrey A. Singer is a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation, where he focuses on health care policy and drug policy. He is President Emeritus and founder of Valley Surgical Clinics, Ltd., Arizona's oldest and largest private group surgical practice. From 2017 to 2026, he served as a senior fellow in the Cato Institute's Department of Health Policy Studies and as a Visiting Fellow at the Goldwater Institute. Singer is a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the American Council on Science and Health and serves on the expert panel for Doctors for Drug Policy Reform. From 1994 to 2016, he was a regular contributor to Arizona Medicine, the journal of the Arizona Medical Association. He served on the Advisory Board Council of the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University from 2014 to 2018. His writings have appeared in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, as well as in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, The Hill, and National Review. He has been a guest on national and local television and radio. Singer received his BA from Brooklyn College (City University of New York) and his MD from New York Medical College. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
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