Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2018 The ffecE ts of Recreational Marijuana Legislation on the Opioid Epidemic in Washington State Steven Dickerson Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Dickerson, Steven, "The Effects of Recreational Marijuana Legislation on the Opioid Epidemic in Washington State" (2018). CMC Senior Theses. 1757. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1757 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Effects of Recreational Marijuana Legislation on the Opioid Epidemic in Washington State Submitted to Professor David Bjerk By: Steven Reid Dickerson Jr. for Senior Thesis Fall 2017 December 4th Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 3 Introduction 4 Literature Summary 7 A History of the Opioid Epidemic 7 The History of Marijuana Legislation in the United States 10 The Effect of Marijuana Laws on Opioid Usage 12 Data 13 Opioid Overdose Crude Death Rate 14 Self-Reported Drug Usage 15 Treatment Admissions 15 Empirical Strategy 16 Analysis 19 Opioid Overdose Crude Death Rates 19 Self-Reported Opioid Usage 24