 Decriminalization and Initiation into Cannabis UseAnne Line Bretteville-Jensen and Jenny Williams No 1130, Department of Economics - Working Papers Series from The University of Melbourne Abstract: The central question faced by policy makers contemplating decriminalization of cannabis is whether such a move will lead to an increase in use, and if so, by whom and by how much. We address this question by investigating the impact of decriminalization on the decision to start using cannabis. Our analysis is based on individual level information from a general population in Australia. Australia provides an interesting case study for examining this issue because it has decriminalized the use of cannabis in half of its states and territories. In modeling cannabis uptake, we use a discrete-time hazard model and account for unobserved diferences between states that decriminalize and those that do not. We end that decriminalizing cannabis shifts the age distribution of uptake towards younger age groups while leaving the proportion of those who will start using cannabis unchanged. This suggests that decriminalization effects when individuals start using cannabis, rather than whether or not they start. Keywords: Cannabis use; decriminalization; cannabis policy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1130 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Department of Economics - Working Papers Series from The University of Melbourne Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne, 4th Floor, FBE Building, Level 4, 111 Barry Street. Victoria, 3010, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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