IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v12y1994i3p101-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Harm Reduction, Rational Addiction, And The Optimal Prescribing Of Illegal Drugs

Author

Listed:
  • RICHARD STEVENSON

Abstract

Harm reduction (HR) policy is designed to reduce the social, medical and economic cost of illegal drug use to users and to society at large. It is the most important recent development in international drug policy. However, in the United States and elsewhere, some fear that HR facilities such as needle exchanges and methadone maintenance programs may increase drug consumption and the risk of addiction. This is most likely if users are rational, forward‐looking utility maximizers as in the Becker‐Murphy model (1988). The tendency for HR policy to increase drug consumption may be strong or weak, depending on the type of drug and the elasticity of demand with respect to the full cost of drug use. The model predicts that the effects will differ between social groups and that there is an optimal prescribing policy for addicts who legally receive drugs in treatment programs. Evidence suggests that clinicians tend to prescribe sub‐optimally.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Stevenson, 1994. "Harm Reduction, Rational Addiction, And The Optimal Prescribing Of Illegal Drugs," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(3), pages 101-108, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:12:y:1994:i:3:p:101-108
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1994.tb00438.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1994.tb00438.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1994.tb00438.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S & Grossman, Michael & Murphy, Kevin M, 1991. "Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 237-241, May.
    2. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lippert, Steffen & Schumacher, Christoph, 2009. "Hopping on the methadone bus," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 728-736, May.
    2. GRANGER Maury & PRICE Gregory, 2016. "Breaking Bad In Mississippi: Do County-Level Alcohol Sale Bans Encourage Crystal Methamphetamine Production And Consumption?," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 11(3), pages 55-66, December.
    3. Samuel Cameron & Alan Collins, 2006. "Addict Death," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 963-969, October.

    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. Andrés Elberg & Pedro M. Gardete & Rosario Macera & Carlos Noton, 2019. "Dynamic effects of price promotions: field evidence, consumer search, and supply-side implications," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-58, March.
    2. Strulik, Holger, 2023. "Hooked on weight control: An economic theory of anorexia nervosa and its impact on health and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Eric Noevdal & Jason F. Shogren, 2004. "Genetic Variability, Economic Behavior and the Formation of Social Norms: The Case of European Alcohol Consumption," Working Papers 139, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Discussion Papers in Economics.
    4. Jeffrey E. Harris & Sandra W. Chan, 1999. "The continuum‐of‐addiction: cigarette smoking in relation to price among Americans aged 15–29," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 81-86, February.
    5. Liu, Jin-Long & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K. & Chou, Shin-Yi, 1999. "The price elasticity of opium in Taiwan, 1914-1942," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 795-810, December.
    6. Mark Coppejans & Donna Gilleskie & Holger Sieg & Koleman Strumpf, 2007. "Consumer Demand under Price Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from the Market for Cigarettes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 510-521, August.
    7. Ciccarelli, Carlo & Giamboni, Luigi & Waldmann, Robert, 2007. "Cigarette smoking, pregnancy, forward looking behavior and dynamic inconsistency," MPRA Paper 8878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Champarnaud, Luc & Michel, Philippe, 2000. "Biens culturels, transmission de culture et croissance," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 76(4), pages 501-520, décembre.
    9. Pierre Kopp, 1994. "Consommation de drogue et efficacité des politiques publiques," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(6), pages 1333-1356.
    10. Wang Ruqu, 2007. "The Optimal Consumption and the Quitting of Harmful Addictive Goods," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-38, February.
    11. Branko Milanovic, 2008. "Qat Expenditures in Yemen and Djibouti: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 17(5), pages 661-687, November.
    12. Cutler, David M & Epstein, Arnold M. & Frank, Richard G. & Hartman, Raymond & King, Charles III & Newhouse, Joseph P. & Rosenthal, Meredith B. & Vigdor, Elizabeth Richardson, 2000. "How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement? Assessing Payments to Massachusetts," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 21(2-3), pages 235-261, November.
    13. Gschwandtner, Adelina & Jewell, Sarah L. & Kambhampati, Uma, 2015. "On the Relationship between Lifestyle and Happiness in the UK," 89th Annual Conference, April 13-15, 2015, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 204199, Agricultural Economics Society.
    14. Brian S. Ferguson, 2000. "Interpreting the rational addiction model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(7), pages 587-598, October.
    15. Ziggy MacDonald, 2004. "What Price Drug Use? The Contribution of Economics to an Evidence‐Based Drugs Policy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 113-152, April.
    16. Runge, C. Ford, 2007. "The Economic Consequences of the Obese," Working Papers 7261, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
    17. DeCicca, Philip & Kenkel, Donald & Mathios, Alan, 2000. "Putting Out The Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce Youth Smoking?," Working Papers 00-3, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    18. Cook, Philip J. & Moore, Michael J., 2000. "Alcohol," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 30, pages 1629-1673, Elsevier.
    19. Jeffrey K. Sarbaum & Solomon W. Polachek & Norman E. Spear, 1999. "The Effects of Price Changes on Alcohol Consumption in Alcohol-Experienced Rats," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 75-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. D. Dragone & D. Raggi, 2018. "Testing Rational Addiction: When Lifetime is Uncertain, One Lag is Enough," Working Papers wp1119, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    More about this item

    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:bla:coecpo:v:12:y:1994:i:3:p:101-108. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.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.