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Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform

“Recreational Cannabis Reduces Rapes and Thefts: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment”

By Douglas Berman

The title of this post is the title of this fascinating new study available via SSRN from a group of economists.  Here is the abstract:

An argument against the legalization of the cannabis market is that such a policy would increase crime.  Exploiting the recent staggered legalization enacted by the states of Washington (end of 2012) and Oregon (end of 2014) we show, combining difference-in-differences and spatial regression discontinuity designs, that recreational cannabis caused a significant reduction of rapes and thefts on the Washington side of the border in 2013-2014 relative to the Oregon side and relative to the pre-legalization years 2010-2012.

Posted in:
Criminal justice developments and reforms, Initiative reforms in states, Recreational Marijuana Data and Research and Recreational Marijuana State Laws and Reforms