Study: States With Legal THC had Fewer EVALI Cases

States with laws legalizing recreational marijuana had fewer cases of e-cigarette/vaping-related lung injury (EVALI) than states without such policies in 2019, researchers reported.

In states that had legalized recreational marijuana, the EVALI case rate averaged 1.7 per million population (95% CI 0.3-3.1), far lower than states where it’s legal only for medical purposes (8.8 per million, 95% CI 5.1-12.5) or completely illegal (8.1 per million, 95% CI 4.1-12.0), reported Alex Hollingsworth, PhD, of Indiana University in Bloomington, and colleagues, according to an article on medpagetoday.com.

Moreover, the number of cases was significantly lower in states with legal recreational marijuana compared to those where it was not after adjusting for vaping rates (difference 7.2 cases per million, 95% CI -11.8 to -2.6, P=0.003), they wrote in a JAMA Network Open research letter, according to the story.

“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,” Hollingsworth told MedPage Today.