As voters prepare to head out to the polls
and weigh in on the issue of medical marijuana legalization, information
on cannabis continues to pour in.
It
began in August when a Miami-Dade County Commission staff report
quantified the economic impact of legalization, pegging a high-dollar
value on the prospective industry.
This
week, the University of Miami followed suit, concluding in a study that
marijuana users have lower body-mass indexes than those who do not
smoke pot.
Published in this month’s issue of The Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics,
the study found that daily female marijuana users have a BMI that is
about 3.1 percent lower than that of female non-users, while the BMI of
daily male-users is about 2.7 percent lower than that of male non-users.
Researchers Michael T. French and Isabelle Beulaygue
pulled data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health,
a sample size greater than 13,000. They then controlled for demographic
variables, such as age, race and employment status; cigarette smoking;
other substance use; and weekly exercise.
“Our
findings run counter to popular belief, which associates marijuana use
with laziness and increased appetite,” said French, a professor of
health-sector management and policy at the UM School of Business
Administration. (French’s colleague on the project and lead investigator
Isabelle Beulaygue is of the UM Miller School of Medicine.)
Though
they emphasize that results are correlational rather than causal,
French and Beulaygue’s study is just the most recent argument in favor
of Amendment 2.
In
September, Miami commissioners reviewed an economic impact report that
estimates annual sales of medical marijuana could reach nearly $300
million across the Southern Region (Broward, Palm Beach, Martin,
Miami-Dade and Monroe counties) if Amendment 2 wins a supermajority of
60 percent in the November election. In Miami-Dade alone, sales could
bring as much as $124.5 million annually.
The
projections were based on regulations established by the Compassionate
Medical Cannabis Act of 2014. Signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott
in June 2014, it allows for the “highly regulated” production,
distribution, use and research of medical marijuana that contains less
than 0.8 percent THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana that gives
users a high.
If
Amendment 2 passes, the number of users that could qualify for all
forms of medical marijuana would jump to 307,000, 41,500 of whom live in
Miami-Dade, according to the report.
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