IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8848.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Drug Decriminalization and the Price of Illicit Drugs

Author

Listed:
  • Félix, Sónia

    (Banco de Portugal)

  • Portugal, Pedro

    (Banco de Portugal)

Abstract

This study is an empirical assessment of the impact of the drug decriminalization policy followed by Portugal in July, 2001. We investigate especially the impact of the policy change on the price of illicit drugs. The analysis is performed using a difference-in-differences approach and a comprehensive set of countries as control group. We also investigate the application of Synthetic Control Method in order to construct a synthetic control unit from a convex combination of other countries. The results suggest that the prices of opiates and cocaine in the post-treatment period did not decrease in the sequence of the policy change. This result contrasts with the argument that softer drug law enforcement necessarily leads to lower prices and, consequently, to higher drug usage rates and dependence.

Suggested Citation

  • Félix, Sónia & Portugal, Pedro, 2015. "Drug Decriminalization and the Price of Illicit Drugs," IZA Discussion Papers 8848, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8848.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poret, Sylvaine, 2002. "Paradoxical effects of law enforcement policies: the case of the illicit drug market," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 465-493, December.
    2. Saffer, Henry & Chaloupka, Frank, 1999. "The Demand for Illicit Drugs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 401-411, July.
    3. Xueyan Zhao & Mark N. Harris, 2004. "Demand for Marijuana, Alcohol and Tobacco: Participation, Levels of Consumption and Cross‐equation Correlations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(251), pages 394-410, December.
    4. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    5. Grossman, Michael & Chaloupka, Frank J., 1998. "The demand for cocaine by young adults: a rational addiction approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 427-474, August.
    6. J. Williams, 2004. "The effects of price and policy on marijuana use: what can be learned from the Australian experience?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 123-137, February.
    7. Coate, Douglas & Grossman, Michael, 1988. "Effects of Alcoholic Beverage Prices and Legal Drinking Ages on Youth Alcohol Use," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 145-171, April.
    8. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    9. Damrongplasit, Kannika & Hsiao, Cheng & Zhao, Xueyan, 2010. "Decriminalization and Marijuana Smoking Prevalence: Evidence From Australia," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 28(3), pages 344-356.
    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. Félix, Sónia & Portugal, Pedro & Tavares, Ana, 2017. "Going after the Addiction, Not the Addicted: The Impact of Drug Decriminalization in Portugal," IZA Discussion Papers 10895, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Craig A. Gallet, 2014. "Can Price Get The Monkey Off Our Back? A Meta‐Analysis Of Illicit Drug Demand," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 55-68, January.
    2. Sarah Brown & Mark N Harris & Jake Prendergast & Preety Srivastava, 2015. "Pharmaceutical Drug Misuse, Industry of Employment and Occupation," Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre Working Paper series WP1501, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School.
    3. D. Mark Anderson & Benjamin Hansen & Daniel I. Rees, 2015. "Medical Marijuana Laws and Teen Marijuana Use," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 17(2), pages 495-528.
    4. Anne Bretteville-Jensen, 2006. "Drug Demand – Initiation, Continuation and Quitting," De Economist, Springer, vol. 154(4), pages 491-516, December.
    5. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny, 2007. "Cannabis prices and dynamics of cannabis use," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 578-596, May.
    6. Mark N. Harris & Ranjodh B. Singh & Preety Srivastava, 2024. "Cannabis and tobacco: substitutes and complements," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(4), pages 1-29, December.
    7. Niko de Silva & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Smoke Signals and Mixed Messages: Medical Marijuana & Drug Policy Signalling Effects," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    8. Kenneth W. Clements & Xueyan Zhao, 2005. "Economic Aspects of Marijuana," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 05-28, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    9. Pudney, Stephen & Bryan, Mark & DelBono, Emilia, 2013. "Licensing and regulation of the cannabis market in England and Wales: Towards a cost-benefit analysis," MPRA Paper 50365, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. William Greene & Mark N. Harris & Preety Srivastava & Xueyan Zhao, 2018. "Misreporting and econometric modelling of zeros in survey data on social bads: An application to cannabis consumption," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 372-389, February.
    11. Niko de Silva & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Smoke Signals and Mixed Messages: Medical Marijuana & Drug Policy Signalling Effects," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    12. Williams, Jenny & Bretteville-Jensen, Anne Line, 2014. "Does liberalizing cannabis laws increase cannabis use?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 20-32.
    13. Frank J. Chaloupka & Michael Grossman & Warren K. Bickel & Henry Saffer, 1999. "Introduction to "The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometrics and Behavioral Economic Research"," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Adam J. Davis & Karl R. Geisler & Mark W. Nichols, 2016. "The price elasticity of marijuana demand: evidence from crowd-sourced transaction data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1171-1192, June.
    15. Preety Ramful & Xueyan Zhao, 2009. "Participation in marijuana, cocaine and heroin consumption in Australia: a multivariate probit approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 481-496.
    16. Anne Line Bretteville-Jensen & Jenny Williams, 2011. "Decriminalization and Initiation into Cannabis Use," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1130, The University of Melbourne.
    17. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira-Font, 2020. "Ensuring Stability, Accuracy and Meaningfulness in Synthetic Control Methods: The Regularized SHAP-Distance Method," IREA Working Papers 202005, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2020.
    18. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    19. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    20. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    illicit drugs; drug decriminalization policy; drug prices; treatment effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp8848. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.