Frequency of Marijuana Use not Significantly Associated with Health Services Utilization

Researchers from Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine take an in-depth look at the frequency of marijuana use and it's insignificant association with health services utilization or health status.

As marijuana's legal status across the United States is in a constant state of change with new rules and regulations as more states gain acceptance for use of the illicit drug, the impact on health and healthcare utilization of the product has yet to be extensively studied.

The researchers examined 589 adults who screened positive for drug use at a primary care visit. Those patients were then asked about their drug use, emergency room use and hospitalizations and their overall health status. In addition, information regarding medical diagnoses was obtained from their medical records. They found the vast majority of the study sample-84 percent-used marijuana; 25 percent used cocaine; 23 percent used opioids; eight percent used other drugs and 58 percent used marijuana but not other drugs.

Researchers also found that there were no differences between daily marijuana users and those not using the drug in their use of the emergency room, in hospitalizations, medical diagnoses or their health status.

Researchers note via the study that it's common for illicit drug users to use marijuana and other drugs together. Therefore, it's important to know the incremental effects of marijuana use on health.

"Even though we could not compare marijuana users to those who used no drugs at all, our findings suggest that marijuana use has little measurable effect on self-reported health or healthcare utilization in adults using drugs identified in a primary care clinic," said lead author Daniel Fuster, MD, a postdoctoral scholar from the Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit at BMC and BUSM, via a press release.

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More information regarding the study can be found via the Journal of General Internal Medicine.