Marijuana users do not use health care services at rates that are higher than non-users, according to a study published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine.
Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin assessed the relationship between marijuana use and health care utilization in a nationally representative sample of 174,159,864 US adults aged 18 to 59 years old. The study found no significant association between marijuana use and healthcare utilization such as outpatient health care visits and overnight hospital admissions. The study also found that the frequency of marijuana use does not have significant impact on healthcare utilization. Read the report – Marijuana users do not have increased healthcare utilization.
This result is consistent with a previous assessment, published in 2014 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Researchers form the Boston University School of Public Health and the Cleveland State University School of Health Sciences similarly found no association between frequency of marijuana use and health, emergency department use, or hospital utilization. Read the report – No Detectable Association Between Frequency of Marijuana Use and Health or Healthcare Utilization.