In the past 20 years, the drive to legalize medical cannabis has gained national attention with the public and policy makers. However, little is known about whether medical cannabis is being used clinically to any significant degree. Using data on all prescriptions filled by Medicare Part D enrollees in the United States from 2010 to 2015, we find that the use of prescription drugs for which cannabis could serve as a clinical alternative fell significantly once a medical cannabis law (MCL) was put in place. Overall savings to the Medicare program when states implement MCLs are estimated to have been as much as $638.8 million per year by 2015. Counterfactually, if all states had adopted dispensary-based MCLs by 2015, we estimate that programmatic savings would have been between $1.4 and $1.7 billion. The availability of medical cannabis has a significant effect on prescribing patterns and spending under Medicare Part D.

中文翻译：

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医疗保险D部分下医疗大麻合法化对处方药使用和费用的影响

在过去的20年中，使医疗大麻合法化的努力已经引起了公众和决策者的全国关注。但是，人们对于临床上是否大量使用医用大麻知之甚少。使用2010年至2015年美国Medicare D部分参与者填写的所有处方数据，我们发现，一旦制定了医疗大麻法（MCL），可以将大麻用作临床替代品的处方药的使用就大大减少了。地点。到2015年，各州实施MCL时，Medicare计划的总体节省估计每年可达6.388亿美元。反之，如果所有州到2015年都采用了基于药房的MCL，我们估计计划性节省将在1.4到460美元之间。 17亿美元。