Did the Legalization of Medical Marijuana in 2000 Impact Those States’ Suicide Rates?

In the year 2000, three states legalized marijuana for medicinal use:

• Colorado (Legalized with Initiative 20)
• Hawaii (Legalized with SB 862 HD1)
• Nevada (Legalized with Question 9)

I took an interest in seeing how this legalization impacted suicide rates in these states in the time leading up to and right after medical marijuana was legalized. I predicted that these states would across the board see a reduction in crude rates for deaths with the injury intent/mechanism of suicide. The dataset I’m using is the CDC’s Underlying Cause of Death dataset.

The Statistics

Interestingly enough, while Colorado did see a stark increase in suicide rates between the years of 2000–2001, it appears that it did not retain the upward trend in suicides for the United States as a whole. Insight into further years would be necessary to confirm or deny if Colorado continued to see a decrease in suicide rates past the year 2002.

Colorado Sees a Drastic Increase in Suicides Between 2000 and 2001.

Furthermore, Nevada actually saw a decrease in suicide rates between the same years Colorado saw an increase (2000–2001) however, it appears that Nevada may have returned to follow the upwards trend in suicides that the United States as a whole followed. Again, insight into further years would be necessary to confirm this claim.

Nevada Sees a Decrease in Suicides Between 2000 and 2001, but then an increase between 2001 and 2002.

The third state in our sample of states that legalized medical marijuana in the year 2000, Hawaii, saw only decreases in the years we’ve sampled past their legalization date.

Hawaii Saw a Decrease in Suicide Rate in the Two Years Following Their Legalization of Medical Marijuana.

What Exactly is Going On?

It appears that for the dates we’ve sampled, Hawaii is the only state that saw a steady decrease in suicides in the years following the legalization of medical marijuana in their state.

Hawaii is the only state of those that legalized medical Marijuana in 2000 that maintained a decrease in suicide rates in the following two years post-legalization.

It is interesting to see that Hawaii’s suicide rate dropped for both years in our sample post-legalization, whereas Colorado’s and Nevada’s suicide rates were more fluctuating. Again, while more analysis is needed on years past our sample, Colorado did see a minor decrease in suicide rates between the years 2001–2002, whereas in those same years, Nevada saw a more significant increase in their suicide rates.

My Take-Away From the Data

The following are the points I’ve taken away from the data:

• I reject my null hypothesis that the legalization of medical marijuana would decrease suicide rates across the board.
• Analysis into other factors that play a part in suicide rates is necessary, considering the fact that the trends for each state are so different.

The following are questions I have about the data that I believe deserve more attention:

• What is going on in Colorado between the years of 2000 and 2001? Why did suicide rates jump such a drastic rate as 14.47%?
• What changed between 2001 and 2002 in Nevada for the suicide rate of the state to increase by over 5% after dropping nearly 8% the year before?
• What did Hawaii do differently than other states and the nation as a whole to have such a stark decrease in suicide rates?

In the future, I’d like to look into other policy changes in these states, as well as other social and economic factors that are at play.

Jupyter Notebook for This Data Storytelling Project