A novel supply-side measure to combat abuse of addictive prescription drugs

Alexander Ahammer

No 2019-11, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: In the United States, 115 people die each day due to overdose, and a third of overdoses involve the concurrent use of opioids and a class of sedatives called benzodiazepines. Facing a similar problem in 2012, Austria responded by installing public health officers (PHOs) as third-party institutions overseeing prescriptions of the most potent and commonly abused benzodiazepine, flunitrazepam. Since December 15, 2012, every single flunitrazepam prescription must be authorized and countersigned by a PHO, prescriptions were restricted to a month’s supply of the drug, and doses must be dispensed daily, under supervision, in a pharmacy. I identify a sample of opioids addicts in administrative social security data and study their response to this reform. Event studies suggest a persistent decline in flunitrazepam prescriptions but substitution to less potent benzodiazepines following the reform. To examine subsequent health, labor market, and drug abuse-related outcomes, I additionally exploit regional variation in PHO strictness affecting the likelihood that addicts opt to quit the drug due to the reform. I find that addicts who quit after encountering a strict PHO have better health and labor market outcomes, have fewer opioid overdoses, and are less likely to take antidepressants or weak opioids. I discuss how these findings translate to the US setting, and whether a similar policy can help curb its opioid epidemic.

Keywords: Opioid epidemic; addictive drugs; supply-control; prescription regulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H12 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-hea
Note: English
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2019/wp1911.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:jku:econwp:2019_11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by René Böheim ().