More than a dozen Federal policy changes since the year 2000 have affected incentives to prescribe, manufacture, and purchase both prescription and illicitly-manufactured opioids. To the extent that one of the policies, the 2013 "Holder memo," had a meaningful effect on the cost structure of...

Drug control policy can have unintended consequences by pushing existing users to alternative, possibly more dangerous substances. Policies that target only new users may therefore be especially promising. Using commercial insurance claims data, we provide the first evidence on a set of new...

This article presents estimates of the effects of state prescription opioid policies on prescription opioid sales, mortality and socioeconomic outcomes of adults. Our analysis highlights that most prescription opioid use is medically prescribed and that curtailing such use may have adverse...

Over the last two decades, there has been a surge of opioid-related overdose deaths resulting in a myriad of state policy responses. Researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of such policies using a wide-range of statistical models, each of which requires multiple design choices that can...

Over the last few years, marijuana has become legally available for recreational use to roughly a quarter of Americans. Policy makers have long expressed concerns about the substantial external costs of alcohol, and similar costs could come with the liberalization of marijuana policy. Indeed,...

Marijuana is partially prohibited: though banned federally, it will soon be available to almost 1 in 4 U.S. adults under state statutes. A chief concern among policy makers is marijuana trafficking from states with legal markets elsewhere. We measure trafficking with a natural experiment. Oregon...

Drug addiction reflects abnormal operation of normal neural circuitry. More than physical dependence, addiction represents changes in the brain that lead to increased craving and diminished capacity for the control of impulses. Given the growing biological understanding of addiction, it is...

In 2001, use of the STRIDE data base for the purposes of analyzing drug prices and the impact of public policies on drug markets came under serious attack by the National Research Council (Manski et al., 2001; Horowitz, 2001). While some of the criticisms raised by the committee were valid, many of...

This paper presents a general equilibrium model for the production, trafficking, and consumption of illegal drugs which endogenously determines relative prices and quantities. The model is calibrated to characterize the market for cocaine and is used to analyze the effects of three types of...