The debate about the prohibition of drugs has taken a fundamental turn with the publication of ‘Regulation: The Responsible Control of Drugs’ by the Global Commission on Drug Policy. This edition of the journal publishes papers addressing how to regulate drugs, which informed the Global...

The drug trade as a global and national phenomenon -- Analytic perspectives for explaining the drug trade -- Conceptualizing consumption : drug use and drug users -- The production of psychoactive substances -- Distribution : linking producers and consumers -- Money laundering : money makes the...

This paper provides a critical review of the empirical and theoretical literatures on illegal drug policy, including cross-country comparisons, in order to evaluate three drug policy regimes: criminalization, legalization and “depenalization.” Drawing on the experiences of various states, as...

This paper uses an unbanked industry to study the impact of government certification on financial access and growth. Marijuana is considered illegal by the Federal law resulting in high financial access costs. I exploit a unique experiment by Washington State that significantly lowered such...