Marijuana liberalization policies and perinatal health

Angélica Meinhofer, Allison Witman, Jesse M. Hinde and Kosali Simon

Journal of Health Economics, 2021, vol. 80, issue C

Abstract: We studied the effect of marijuana liberalization policies on perinatal health with a multiperiod difference-in-differences estimator that exploited variation in effective dates of medical marijuana laws (MML) and recreational marijuana laws (RML). We found that the proportion of maternal hospitalizations with marijuana use disorder increased by 23% (0.3 percentage points) in the first three years after RML implementation, with larger effects in states authorizing commercial sales of marijuana. This growth was accompanied by a 7% (0.4 percentage points) decline in tobacco use disorder hospitalizations, yielding a net zero effect over all substance use disorder hospitalizations. RMLs were not associated with statistically significant changes in newborn health. MMLs had no statistically significant effect on maternal substance use disorder hospitalizations nor on newborn health and fairly small effects could be ruled out. In absolute numbers, our findings implied modest or no adverse effects of marijuana liberalization policies on the array of perinatal outcomes considered.

Keywords: Medical marijuana laws; Recreational marijuana laws; Pregnant women; Neonatal health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:80:y:2021:i:c:s0167629621001223

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102537

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