Do Drug Consumption Rooms Reduce Drug-Related Hospitalizations? Evidence from Switzerland

Ana Armendariz

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This paper estimates the causal effect of drug consumption room (DCR) openings on drug-related hospitalizations in Switzerland. I exploit the staggered introduction of DCRs across Swiss cities between 1998 and 2022, using individual-level hospital records and a difference-in-differences estimator. DCR openings reduce drug-related hospitalization rates by roughly 35\% within 5 km of a facility. The reduction is most pronounced for fatal outcomes, which fall by 35\% while narcotics poisoning hospitalizations rise by a comparable amount, consistent with DCRs converting potentially fatal overdoses into non-fatal hospitalizations. Mental and behavioral disorder hospitalizations decline by 32\% while estimates for Hepatitis and HIV are imprecise. The findings support the role of DCRs as an effective harm reduction strategy.

Date: 2026-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.27732 Latest version (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:arx:papers:2609.27732

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().