IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v18y2026i2p346-74.html

State Recreational Cannabis Laws and Racial Disparities in the Criminal Legal System

Author

Listed:
  • Angélica Meinhofer
  • Adrian Rubli
  • Jamein P. Cunningham

Abstract

We estimate the direct and spillover effects of cannabis legalization on longstanding racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes. We find that legalization reduces cannabis possession and sales arrests for White and Black populations, narrowing but not eliminating disparities. We also find spillover increases in hospitalizations involving cannabis and other illegal drugs. However, spillovers on arrests, incarcerations, and crimes involving serious violent or property offenses are insignificant or even decrease. Other illegal drug sales arrests decrease across populations, while illegal drug incarcerations decrease only among White populations. Spillovers on other low-level offenses are insignificant for White but mixed for Black populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Angélica Meinhofer & Adrian Rubli & Jamein P. Cunningham, 2026. "State Recreational Cannabis Laws and Racial Disparities in the Criminal Legal System," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 346-374, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:346-74
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230670
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20230670
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E235147V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25022
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25027
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20230670?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    2. Gunadi, Christian & Shi, Yuyan, 2022. "Cannabis decriminalization and racial disparity in arrests for cannabis possession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    3. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects," Papers 2007.04267, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    4. Damian Clarke & Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2020. "The Romano–Wolf multiple-hypothesis correction in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 20(4), pages 812-843, December.
    5. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, July.
    6. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna & Palme, Mårten, 2021. "Health and Labor Market Impacts of Twin Birth : Evidence from a Swedish IVF Policy Mandate," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1391, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Fabra, Natalia & Gutiérrez, Eduardo & Lacuesta, Aitor & Ramos, Roberto, 2024. "Do renewable energy investments create local jobs?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    3. Brehm, Johannes & Pestel, Nico & Schaffner, Sandra & Schmitz, Laura, 2025. "From Low Emission Zone to academic track: Environmental policy effects on educational achievement in elementary school," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    4. Bhalotra, Sonia & Nunes, Letícia & Rocha, Rudi, 2026. "Emergency care centers, hospital performance and population health," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    5. Santiago Garriga & Dario Tortarolo, 2024. "Wage effects of means-tested transfers: Incidence implications of using firms as intermediaries," IFS Working Papers W24/49, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    6. Luc Jacolin & Quentin Dufresne & Marin Ferry, 2025. "From Debt Reset to Growth Onset? Sovereign Debt Restructuring and Firm Performance in Developing Countries," Working papers 991, Banque de France.
    7. Agnieszka Postepska & Anastasiia Voloshyna, 2025. "The effect of Ukrainian refugees on the local labour markets: the case of Czechia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-45, March.
    8. Bhorat, Haroon & Köhler, Timothy, 2025. "The labour market effects of cash transfers to the unemployed: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    9. Johansson, Naimi & Jakobsson, Niklas & Svensson, Mikael, 2024. "Place or patient as the driver of regional variation in healthcare spending – Discrepancies by category of care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).
    10. Kim, Yoonjung, 2025. "The effects of universal free lunch provision on student achievement: Evidence from South Korea," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    11. Campbell, Richard Cole, 2024. "Need for speed: Fiber and student achievement," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6).
    12. Bellégo, Christophe & Benatia, David & Dortet-Bernadet, Vincent, 2025. "The chained difference-in-differences," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    13. Hyo Kang & John C. Eklund, 2025. "Fast Friends: The Impact of Short-Term Visits on Firms’ Invention Outcomes," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 1154-1176, May.
    14. Francesconi, Marco & Sonedda, Daniela, 2024. "Does Weaker Employment Protection Lower the Cost of Job Loss?," CEPR Discussion Papers 19504, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    15. Chervier, Colas & Ximenes, Arimatéa C. & Mihigo, Blaise-Pascal Ntirumenyerwa & Doumenge, Charles, 2024. "Impact of industrial logging concession on deforestation and forest degradation in the DRC," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    16. Taskin, Ahmet Ali & Yaman, Firat, 2023. "The effect of branching deregulation on finance wage premium," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 08/2023, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    17. Maorui Yang & Han Yu, 2024. "Long-Run Effects of Childhood Exposure to Medical Marijuana Laws on Education and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 565-597, December.
    18. Gulzar, Saad & Ladino, Juan Felipe & Mehmood, Muhammad Zia & Rogger, Daniel, 2025. "Command and Can’t Control : Assessing Centralized Accountability in the Public Sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11200, The World Bank.
    19. Sarsenbayeva, Aigerim & Alpysbayeva, Dinara, 2025. "Catastrophic health expenditure during healthcare financing reform: Evidence from Kazakhstan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 371(C).
    20. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:346-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.