Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations? The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on US Crime
We thank Stacy Bogan, Libor Dusek, Aart Gerritsen, Benjamin, Hansen, Tetsuya Hoshino, Steffen Juranek, Stepan Jurajda, Hajime Katayama, Cameron Laubisch, Steven Machin, Yutaka Maeda, Giovanni Mastrobuoni, Danilo Mandic, Mark Moore, Daniel Rees, Yoshimichi Sato, Jason Wilks, Christopher Winship and four anonymous referees for very helpful suggestions and comments. Further, we thank the participants at the Criminal Law and Governance Workshop 2013 in Bergen, the IZA annual meeting on dangerous behaviours 2015 in Izmir, and seminar participants at Harvard University, the Norwegian School of Economics and CERGE-EI. Gavrilova thanks the Research Council of Norway, grant number 239120. Kamada thanks the Grand-in-Aid for Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellows (26-5010).
Abstract
We show that the introduction of medical marijuana laws (MMLs) leads to a decrease in violent crime in states that border Mexico. The reduction in crime is strongest for counties close to the border (less than 350 kilometres) and for crimes that relate to drug trafficking. In addition, we find that MMLs in inland states lead to a reduction in crime in the nearest border state. Our results are consistent with the theory that decriminalisation of the production and distribution of marijuana leads to a reduction in violent crime in markets that are traditionally controlled by Mexican drug trafficking organisations.
