The effects of recreational marijuana laws on drug use and crime

Joseph J. Sabia, Dhaval Dave, Fawaz Alotaibi and Daniel I. Rees

Journal of Public Economics, 2024, vol. 234, issue C

Abstract: Recreational marijuana laws (RMLs), which legalize the sale and possession of small quantities of marijuana for recreational use, have been adopted by 24 states and the District of Columbia. Using a generalized difference-in-differences approach and data for the period 2000–2019 from a variety of sources (the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, the Uniform Crime Reports, the Treatment Episode Data Set, and the National Vital Statistics Mortality files), this study comprehensively examines the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana on drug use, crime, and admissions to substance use treatment facilities. Our analyses show that RML adoption increases the use of marijuana by adults and reduces marijuana-related arrests. However, we find little evidence that RMLs increase the use of harder drugs, admissions to substance use treatment facilities, or property and violent crime. In fact, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana and opioids are substitutes.

Keywords: Recreational marijuana laws; Drug use; Crime; Substance use; Treatment admissions; Opioids (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 K14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272724000112
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:pubeco:v:234:y:2024:i:c:s0047272724000112

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105075

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().