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Marijuana liberalization policies and perinatal health

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  • Meinhofer, Angélica
  • Witman, Allison E.
  • Hinde, Jesse M.
  • Simon, Kosali

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Meinhofer, Angélica & Witman, Allison E. & Hinde, Jesse M. & Simon, Kosali, 2021. "Marijuana liberalization policies and perinatal health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:80:y:2021:i:c:s0167629621001223
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102537
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    Cited by:

    1. de Chaisemartin, Clément & D’Haultfœuille, Xavier, 2023. "Two-way fixed effects and differences-in-differences estimators with several treatments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 236(2).
    2. Angélica Meinhofer & Allison Witman & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Yuhua Bao, 2022. "Prenatal substance use policies and newborn health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1452-1467, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Medical marijuana laws; Recreational marijuana laws; Pregnant women; Neonatal health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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