Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32394566›Full record

ArticleWorld psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)2020

Assessing the public health impacts of legalizing recreational cannabis use: the US experience.

Wayne Hall, Michael Lynskey

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 135 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
135citing papers in PubMed, 5 pooled it
28.5field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

135 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 279 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Cannabis use among cancer survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026
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  12. Day-level shifts in social contexts during youth cannabis use treatment.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2021
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75 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Wayne HallUniversity of Queensland Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research, Brisbane, Australia.
Michael LynskeyNational Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
King's College London · GBUniversity of Queensland · AU

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The sale of cannabis for adult recreational use has been made legal in nine US states since 2012, and nationally in Uruguay in 2013 and Canada in 2018. We review US research on the effects of legalization on cannabis use among adults and adolescents and on cannabis-related harms; the impact of legalizing adult recreational use on cannabis price, availability, potency and use; and regulatory policies that may increase or limit adverse effects of legalization. The legalization of recreational cannabis use in the US has substantially reduced the price of cannabis, increased its potency, and made cannabis more available to adult users. It appears to have increased the frequency of cannabis use among adults, but not so far among youth. It has also increased emergency department attendances and hospitalizations for some cannabis-related harms. The relatively modest effects on cannabis use to date probably reflect restrictions on the number and locations of retail cannabis outlets and the constraints on commercialization under a continued federal prohibition of cannabis. Future evaluations of legalization should monitor: cannabis sales volumes, prices and content of tetrahydrocannabinol; prevalence and frequency of cannabis use among adolescents and adults in household and high school surveys; car crash fatalities and injuries involving drivers who are cannabis-impaired; emergency department presentations related to cannabis; the demand for treatment of cannabis use disorders; and the prevalence of regular cannabis use among vulnerable young people in mental health services, schools and the criminal justice system. Governments that propose to legalize and regulate cannabis use need to fund research to monitor the impacts of these policy changes on public health, and take advantage of this research to develop ways of regulating can-nabis use that minimize adverse effects on public health.

Indexed as

Cannabiscannabis potencycannabis-related harmsemergency department attendanceslegalizationpublic health impactsrecreational usevulnerable young people

Identifiers

PMID32394566
PMCPMC7215066
OpenAlexW3025423907

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.