Medical marijuana reduces suicide - study

On the subject of medical stuff, this is an interesting study that's just come out. Wouldn't you know it, if you're suicidal then marijuana can help you deal better with life events/stress and actually reduces the suicide rate among younger people:

Results. After adjustment for economic conditions, state policies, and state-specific linear time trends, the association between legalizing medical marijuana and suicides was not statistically significant at the .05 level. However, legalization was associated with a 10.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] = −17.1%, −3.7%) and 9.4% (95% CI = −16.1%, −2.4%) reduction in the suicide rate of men aged 20 through 29 years and 30 through 39 years, respectively. Estimates for females were less precise and sensitive to model specification.

Conclusions. Suicides among men aged 20 through 39 years fell after medical marijuana legalization compared with those in states that did not legalize. The negative relationship between legalization and suicides among young men is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events. However, this relationship may be explained by alcohol consumption. The mechanism through which legalizing medical marijuana reduces suicides among young men remains a topic for future study. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 16, 2014: e1–e8. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301612) Read More

I dunno when laws to legalise dope here would ever come in. Politically Australia has lurched to the far right looney land under Abbott. Conversely, the amount of people here that smoke a bit of dope is huge.