Two and a half years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, our unofficial working theory was finally confirmed: cannabis use was recently found in a new study to be associated with decreased Covid severity, contrary to what some pundits have claimed. Remember, our own theory was that that was why states (such as Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, DC, Alaska, and the entire West Coast) and countries (Canada, Netherlands, and Uruguay) with at least de facto legalized recreational cannabis (as of January 2020) saw lower Covid-related death rates compared to places where cannabis was not yet (if ever) fully legal for recreational use by early 2020, and especially when compared to their neighbors.
Some exceptions are Michigan, Illinois, and Nevada, of course. Those states did not do very well with Covid despite cannabis legalization in place by 2020, but the first two were latecomers with relatively delayed implementation of their legalization. And the Netherlands, contrary to popular opinion, does not have full legalization, but rather a quasi-legalization scheme where, as the locals there would say, "the front door is legal but the back door is illegal".
But overall, it seems our theory panned out quite nicely. Even when looking simply at cannabis use rates, rather than legalization, a similar pattern emerges overall. Think the Southern US states vs Northern states, or Easten Europe vs Western Europe, or even Sweden vs. Denmark to some extent.
Game. Set. Match. Any questions?
