DECRIMINALIZATION POLICY AND MARIJUANA SMOKING PREVALENCE: A LOOK AT THE LITERATURE

This paper reviews the literature on the impact of marijuana decriminalization policy on marijuana smoking prevalence. Due to mixed findings in the existing studies, we attempt to find a common basis to explain the different results across papers. The main purpose is to provide a coherent background as to what outcomes may be expected from certain type of data, econometric models, and explanatory variables. If possible, we also try to provide the explanation as to why certain results are found.