Recreational marijuana legalization and admission to the foster‐care system

John Gardner and Bright Osei

Economic Inquiry, 2022, vol. 60, issue 3, 1311-1334

Abstract: We estimate the effects of legalized recreational marijuana on entry into the foster‐care system. Exploiting state‐level variation in legalization and its timing, we estimate that legalization decreases foster‐care placements by at least 10%, with larger effects in years after legalization, and for admissions for reasons of parental drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and parental incarceration. Our findings imply that legalization may have important consequences for child welfare, and that substitution toward marijuana from other substances can be an important part of how legalization affects admissions.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13081

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:bla:ecinqu:v:60:y:2022:i:3:p:1311-1334

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0095-2583

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().