More Pot, Less Crime: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Medical Marijuana Law on Select US States

Abstract

The United States has a long and complicated history with Marijuana policy. Recently, the landscape has shifted toward friendlier policies regarding marijuana consumption. In the late 1990s, states such as California, Washington, Nevada, and others became the first to legalize marijuana consumption for medical use. However, marijuana consumption remains illegal at the federal level. Using a panel dataset comprised of six US States from the years 1980 – 2016, I build a state and time fixed effects model to investigate the impact that the presence of legal medical marijuana has on crime rates in the selected states. I find that overall, medical marijuana laws are associated with a 19.3% decrease in total arrest rates, a 21.9% decrease in arrest rates for violent crime, a 26% decrease in arrest rates for non-marijuana drug related crime, and a 23.5% increase in arrest rates for juveniles. My results also indicated that medical marijuana laws have no association with changes in arrest rates for driving under the influence crimes. Additionally, I found that presence of legal medical marijuana may help to reduce the racial disparity that exists regarding arrest rates.