{"677590":{"#nid":"677590","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Public Policy Study Probes Link Between Cannabis, Mental Health Prescriptions","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers have long known about the relationship between cannabis use and mental health. But how that practice has affected prescriptions for drugs to treat mental health disorders has been less clear, until now.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA new \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2823248\u0022\u003Estudy\u003C\/a\u003E from Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Public Policy, recently published in \u003Cem\u003EJAMA Network Open\u003C\/em\u003E, shows that commercially insured patients living in states with legal cannabis sales filled fewer prescriptions for benzodiazepine-class anti-anxiety drugs, but turned in scripts for antipsychotic and antidepressants at rates higher than residents of states without legal cannabis access.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn one way, the news could be good: benzodiazepines are commonly misused, with sometimes fatal results. But the increase in antipsychotic and antidepressant prescriptions is uncharted territory, said Ashley Bradford, the lead researcher on the study and an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDoes this reflect a social benefit with fewer people feeling anxious, or a social harm with fewer people treating their anxiety effectively and more people experiencing psychosis and depression?\u201d Bradford said. \u201cWe can\u2019t say. What we can say is that physicians and patients seem to be responding to cannabis access in clinically meaningful ways.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers analyzed prescription data from more than 10 million commercially insured patients and five classes of psychotropic drugs \u2013 benzodiazepines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, barbiturates, and sleep medications. They then used a synthetic control method to compare prescription fill rates in states with medical and recreational cannabis laws to those without.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;They found that in states where medical cannabis laws were in place, the prescription fill rate for benzodiazepines fell by 12.4% compared to states that did not allow any form of legal marijuana. Legal recreational marijuana caused a bigger drop: 15.2%.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, in states with medical cannabis laws, the antidepressant prescriptions fill rate increased by 3.8% while fill rates for antipsychotics rose by\u0026nbsp;2.5%. Recreational cannabis availability resulted in an 8.8% increase in the antidepressant prescription fill rate, according to the study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe impact of legal cannabis on barbiturates and sleeping medications was insignificant.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This study suggests that cannabis laws may be significantly associated with the population-level use of prescription drugs to treat mental health disorders, although the associations vary by drug class and state,\u201d the authors wrote in the paper. \u0022Our results suggest that additional research is needed to assess whether changes in dispensing of (mental health drugs) are associated with differences in health care outcomes.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrevious studies focused primarily on the impact of medical and, to a lesser extent, recreational laws on prescription dispensing in the Medicaid and Medicare populations. This work reveals that commercially insured patients seem to respond to legal cannabis access in similar ways to those on Medicare and Medicaid.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study also demonstrates the impact of different state laws, Bradford said. She said that the results suggest that researchers could identify which aspects of cannabis policies lead to socially optimal outcomes and help policymakers in each state tailor their laws to the outcomes they most care about.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that these results don\u2019t tell us anything about the mental health outcomes of people who may be using cannabis instead of anxiety medications, or why prescriptions for these other drugs are increasing,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, there\u2019s room for a lot of future research here.\u201d.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study, published Sept. 5, 2024, in \u003Cem\u003EJAMA Network Open, \u003C\/em\u003Eis available at https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1001\/jamanetworkopen.2024.32021.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew research from Georgia Tech looks into the complex relationship among legal cannabis access and prescription fill rates for anxiety drugs, antidepressants, and antipsychotics.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New research from Georgia Tech looks into the complex relationship among legal cannabis access and prescription fill rates for anxiety drugs, antidepressants, and antipsychotics."}],"uid":"34600","created_gmt":"2024-10-15 16:19:23","changed_gmt":"2024-10-29 15:22:02","author":"mpearson34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-10-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-10-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"675320":{"id":"675320","type":"image","title":"AdobeStock_357021250.jpeg","body":"\u003Cp\u003ELegal cannabis access has a complex impact on prescription fill rates for mental health medications, new research from the School of Public Policy shows.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1729009182","gmt_created":"2024-10-15 16:19:42","changed":"1729009182","gmt_changed":"2024-10-15 16:19:42","alt":"Jars of cannabis on display at a dispensary.","file":{"fid":"258931","name":"AdobeStock_357021250.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/10\/15\/AdobeStock_357021250.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/10\/15\/AdobeStock_357021250.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2905256,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/10\/15\/AdobeStock_357021250.jpeg?itok=rbUW9FEL"}}},"media_ids":["675320"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"1289","name":"School of Public Policy"}],"categories":[{"id":"151","name":"Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39511","name":"Public Service, Leadership, and Policy"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMichael Pearson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIvan Allen College of Liberal Arts\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}