The Impacts of Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide on Binge Drinking Among US Adults

The objective of the study is to evaluate the impacts of the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in the USA on the trend of binge drinking among US adults. We analyzed the repeated cross-sectional data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2006-2019) in six legalized states and 17 non-legalized states. The trend in binge drinking behavior was compared with PAS legalization status using logistic regression analysis. Before the legalization, odds ratio (OR) of binge drinking increased annually by 3% in the legalized states, while that in the non-legalized states decreased by 1% annually. After the legalization, the annual change of OR in binge drinking in the non-legalized states increased by 3%, while that in the legalized states was unchanged; that is, non-legalized states showed increased trend of binge drinking compared to legalized states (p for interaction: < 0.001). After the PAS legalization, the trend of binge drinking increased in the non-legalized states compared to the legalized states. Further studies are needed to investigate the pathway.