When citizens legalize drugs

Elena Lucchese and Paolo Roberti

European Journal of Political Economy, 2024, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: The demand for drug legalization is remarkably heterogeneous across countries and over time. A theory is presented to show that ruling politicians can influence this demand by choosing the level of enforcement of drug laws which will influence their exposure to drug use and their views on legalization. If legalization has, overall, expected social benefits, politicians opposed to it will adopt a higher level of law enforcement than politicians in favor. In this case, the level of law enforcement is excessive with respect to the optimal level. If instead, legalizing the drug has overall expected social costs, then the opposite will be the case. The examples of the Netherlands and the US are used to test the model.

Keywords: Drug legalization; War on drugs; Citizen initiative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:85:y:2024:i:c:s0176268024001010

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102599

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