According to a study published recently in the American Medical Association journal, legal marijuana states had fewer vaping related injuries.
The study found that people in these states where recreational marijuana is legal were significantly less likely to experience vaping-related lung injuries than those in states where cannabis is prohibited.
The research letter, published by the JAMA Network Open on Monday, revealed that states with recreational marijuana shops had 1.7 EVALI cases per million population compared to 8.1 cases per million in prohibition states. There was no statistically significant difference between criminalized and medical cannabis states, which experienced 8.8 cases per million population.
“The data suggest that EVALI cases were concentrated in states where consumers do not have legal access to recreational marijuana dispensaries,” the letter reads. “This association was not driven by state-level differences in e-cigarette use, and EVALI case rates were not associated with state-level prevalence of e-cigarette use. One possible inference from our results is that the presence of legal markets for marijuana has helped mitigate or may be protective against EVALI.”
While the researchers said the reason for the association isn’t clear yet, they say that it’s “possible that in recreational states, people tend to purchase marijuana products at legal dispensaries, which may be less likely to sell the contaminated products that are thought to cause EVALI.”
“It appears states that have legal access to marijuana have lower rates of EVALI cases, which is consistent with the hypothesis that people have demand for marijuana products, and in states where they don’t have access to them in this regulatory fashion, they end up purchasing them elsewhere,” study co-author Alex Hollingsworth to MedPage Today.
NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri commented on the study and said, “In jurisdictions where cannabis is legally regulated, consumers gravitate toward the above-ground retail marketplace where they can access lab-tested products manufactured by licensed businesses. Just like alcohol prohibition gave rise to the illicit production of dangerous ‘bathtub gin,’ marijuana prohibition provides bad actors, not licensed businesses, the opportunity to fulfill consumers’ demand—sometimes with tragic results.”
