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Comparative Effects of Recreational and Medical Marijuana Laws On Drug Use Among Adults and Adolescents

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  • Hollingsworth, Alex
  • Wing, Coady
  • Bradford, Ashley

Abstract

Thirty-four states have adopted medical marijuana laws and ten states have adopted recreational marijuana laws. There is little research comparing how these two types of laws affect drug consumption of the general US population. Using a difference in difference strategy, we find that recreational laws increase past-year marijuana use by 25% among adults and by 10% among adolescents. In contrast, medical laws increase adult use by only 5% and have a negligible effect on adolescent use. We also find that recreational marijuana dispensaries are an important driver of the increase in marijuana use for adults 26 and over. Taken together, our results suggest that medical laws are not de facto recreational laws in that they succeed in mitigating recreational use, that recreational laws have broad effects on overall levels of marijuana use, and that underage marijuana use may be an important problem with existing implementations of recreational marijuana laws.

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  • Hollingsworth, Alex & Wing, Coady & Bradford, Ashley, 2020. "Comparative Effects of Recreational and Medical Marijuana Laws On Drug Use Among Adults and Adolescents," SocArXiv drx9f, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:drx9f
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/drx9f
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    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, D. Mark & Rees, Daniel I., 2021. "The Public Health Effects of Legalizing Marijuana," IZA Discussion Papers 14292, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Mathur, Neil K. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2023. "Marijuana legalization and opioid deaths," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Thanh Lu, 2021. "Marijuana legalization and household spending on food and alcohol," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1684-1696, July.
    4. Courtemanche, Charles & Jones, Jordan & Koumpias, Antonios M. & Zapata, Daniela, 2022. "Revisiting the Connection between State Medicaid Expansions and Adult Mortality," IZA Discussion Papers 15803, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Shyam Raman & Ashley C. Bradford, 2022. "Recreational cannabis legalizations associated with reductions in prescription drug utilization among Medicaid enrollees," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1513-1521, July.
    6. Coleman Drake & Jiebing Wen & Jesse Hinde & Hefei Wen, 2021. "Recreational cannabis laws and opioid‐related emergency department visit rates," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2595-2605, September.
    7. Mir M. Ali & Chandler McClellan & Ryan Mutter & Daniel I. Rees, 2023. "Recreational marijuana laws and the misuse of prescription opioids: Evidence from National Survey on Drug Use and Health microdata," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 277-301, February.
    8. Rahi Abouk & Keshar M. Ghimire & Johanna Catherine Maclean & David Powell, 2023. "Pain Management and Work Capacity: Evidence From Workers’ Compensation and Marijuana Legalization," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 737-770, June.
    9. Borbely, Daniel & Lenhart, Otto & Norris, Jonathan & Romiti, Agnese, 2022. "Marijuana Legalization and Mental Health," IZA Discussion Papers 15729, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Smart, Rosanna & Doremus, Jacqueline, 2023. "The kids aren’t alright: The effects of medical marijuana market size on adolescents," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Shyam Raman & Johanna Catherine Maclean & W. David Bradford & Coleman Drake, 2023. "Recreational cannabis and opioid distribution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 747-754, April.
    12. Dave, Dhaval & Liang, Yang & Pesko, Michael F. & Phillips, Serena & Sabia, Joseph J., 2023. "Have recreational marijuana laws undermined public health progress on adult tobacco use?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    13. Hollingsworth, Alex & Wing, Coady, 2020. "Tactics for design and inference in synthetic control studies: An applied example using high-dimensional data," SocArXiv fc9xt, Center for Open Science.

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