This paper examines the evolution of drug use in Colombia over the past years. Our analysis, based on surveys from the Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes, shows that drug consumption grew substantially between 1996 and 2013. The growth occurred for both genders, all ages, socioeconomic...

The gateway hypothesis proposes that cannabis use increases the risk of starting to consume hard drugs. We test this controversial, but influential, hypothesis on a sample of cannabis users employing a unique set of drug prices. A flexible approach is developed to identify the causal gateway...

In this paper, we argue that lower prices for pharmaceuticals can be achieved by fostering a new type of competition in the pharmaceutical industry. Lower drug development costs, and hence prices, can be brought about by abolishing national drug administrations and replacing them with private...

Economic theories of rational addiction aim to describe consumer behavior in the presence of habit-forming goods. We provide a biological foundation for this body of work by formally specifying conditions under which it is optimal to form a habit. We demonstrate the empirical validity of our...

There is scarce empirical evidence on the impacts of drug consumption decriminalization, especially, on problematic drug use and violence. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the consumption of all illicit drugs. In this paper, we focus on determining the short, medium, and long-term impact of...

This paper presents a simple analytical model of the market for hard drugs. The key assumptions are (i) a distinction between new users and existing addicts, (ii) imperfect competition, (iii) selective marketing efforts towards potential users, and (iv) the existence of policy effects on...

We investigate the effect of opium price shocks on the per capita dispensation of prescription opioids in the US. Using quarterly county-level data for 2003-2016, three main results emerge. First, reductions in opium prices significantly increase the quantity of opioids prescribed, and the more...

Opioid overdose is the most common cause of accidental death in the United States and no policy response has been able to contain this epidemic to date. We examine whether local access to medical cannabis can reduce opioid-related mortality. Using a unique data set of medical cannabis...

We attribute the recent quadrupling of heroin death rates to the August, 2010 reformulation of an oft-abused prescription opioid, OxyContin. The new abuse-deterrent formulation led many consumers to substitute to an inexpensive alternative, heroin. Using structural break techniques and variation...

The US is currently in the midst of the worst drug overdose epidemic in its history, with nearly 64,000 drug overdose deaths in 2016. In response, pharmaceutical companies have begun introducing abuse-deterrent painkillers, pills with properties that make the drug more difficult to misuse. The...