ADVERTISEMENT
Study Finds No Evidence of Link Between Drug Possession Law Changes and Fatal Overdoses
While critics of drug decriminalization laws enacted in Oregon and Washington in 2021 have argued that such policies might increase drug use and subsequent fatal overdoses, a study released this week suggests there is no evidence of an association between the decriminalization of small amounts of controlled substances and fatal drug overdose rates in the 2 states.
The study was led by researchers from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and involved collaboration between the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Langone, the Network for Public Health Law, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
“Our analysis suggests that state decriminalization policies do not lead to increases in overdose deaths,” Corey Davis, JD, MSPH, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a member of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, and the study’s senior investigator, said in a news release.
Davis and colleagues recently published a separate study that showed the drug decriminalization policies enacted in Oregon and Washington reduced arrests for drug possession and did not lead to increased arrests for violent crimes.
“Taken together, these findings signal reduced harm to people who use drugs and possibly their communities as well,” Davis said.
To conduct their latest study, researchers reviewed post-decriminalization data in Oregon from February 2021 to March 2022 and in Washington from March 2021 to March 2022 using death certificate data from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System. The researchers created a control group of 13 states with similar rates of overdose as Oregon and 18 states with overdose rates similar to Washington prior to decriminalization.
The investigators found no statistically significant changes in overdose death rates between Oregon, Washington, and the control group, and a sensitivity analysis incorporating an additional 7 months of provisional data did not alter the findings.
While the study provides insight on the impact of drug decriminalization on overdose, study co-lead author Spruha Joshi, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology, cautioned that continued monitoring is needed.
“In addition to reducing penalties for drug possession, Measure 110 in Oregon directed hundreds of millions of dollars of cannabis revenue to increasing access to programming aimed at reducing overdose risk. However, these funds were not distributed until after our study period,” Dr Joshi said.
References
