BREAKING BAD IN MISSISSIPPI: DO COUNTY-LEVEL ALCOHOL SALE BANS ENCOURAGE CRYSTAL METHAMPHETAMINE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION?

Maury Granger and Gregory Price
Additional contact information
Maury Granger: College of Business, Jackson State University, USA

Studies in Business and Economics, 2016, vol. 11, issue 3, 55-66

Abstract: If alcohol has substitutes, changes in its relative price can encourage the production and consumption of other illicit and harmful drugs. This paper considers if county-level bans on the sale of alcohol in the state of Mississippi encourage the production and consumption of crystal methamphetamine. We estimate the parameters of a drug production function in which the inputs are the density of people and firms, underscoring the importance of learning and knowledge spillovers to production and consumption. Poisson and Negative Binomial parameter estimates reveal that county-level bans on hard liquor sales; but not on beer and wine, increase the number of crystal methamphetamine labs. In the absence of such laws, there would be approximately 308 fewer crystal methamphetamine labs in the state of Mississippi. Our findings suggest that in Mississippi, which is the least healthiest state in the nation, county-level bans on hard liquor sales are not welfare improving as they encourage substitution for a drug that is potentially more harmful to individual health than alcohol.

Keywords: Alcohol Prohibition; Substitution Effects; Crystal Methamphetamine Production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://eccsf.ulbsibiu.ro/RePEc/blg/journl/11305granger&price.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:blg:journl:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:55-66

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Studies in Business and Economics from Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences Dumbravii Avenue, No 17, postal code 550324, Sibiu, Romania. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mihaela Herciu ().