According to a new study by Health Affairs, significant evidence shows negative association between medical cannabis laws and prescriptions filled for each category of Medicaid beneficiaries. 

The authors of the study have estimated that if the entire United States had enacted medical cannabis laws back in 2014, there would be a total of $1.01 billion in total savings for fee-for-service Medicaid.

“Our findings suggest that patients and physicians in the community are reacting to the availability of medical marijuana as if it were medicine,” the authors stated.

“Our work adds tot he literature that shows the potential clinical benefits of marijuana,” they continued. “Since our findings also raise important questions about individual behavior and plausible safety concerns for patients who might forgo regular physician monitoring if switching from a prescription drug to marijuana, an important next step for medical marijuana law researchers will be to secure data on individual patients over time to assess these and related questions.”

The results of this study are also similar to conducted by Health Affairs last year which associated medical cannabis laws with a decrease in the number of prescriptions within the Medicare population.