Myths of drug consumption decriminalization: effects of Portuguese decriminalization on violent and drug use mortality

Lucas Marín Llanes and Hernando Zuleta

No 20328, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: There is scarce empirical evidence on the impacts of drug consumption decriminalization, especially, on problematic drug use and violence. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the consumption of all illicit drugs. In this paper, we focus on determining the short, medium, and long-term impact of Portuguese decriminalization on mortality due to drug use and homicides, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. We model drug consumption using an intertemporal consumption model and the decisions of trafficking firms to gain market share employing an optimization model. Our results suggest a non-linear effect of decriminalization on drug consumption risk and increasing incentives for firms to expand their market share employing violence after decriminalization. Empirically, we estimate a negative short-run effect on drug-related deaths and null long-run impacts of this legal reform. In terms of homicides, we find a positive effects in a range of 28.7%-34.2% in the medium- and long-term.

Keywords: Illicit drugs; decriminalization; drug policy reform; consumption drug-relateddeaths; homicides. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 K14 K38 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40
Date: 2022-07-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/59326/dcede2022-28.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:col:000089:020328

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Universidad De Los Andes-Cede ().