Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
娱乐性大麻法案与种族差异：逮捕与绝望死亡的新证据
Recreational Marijuana Laws and Racial Disparities: New Evidence on Arrests and Deaths of Despair
摘要
Proponents of recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) argue that expanding legal access to marijuana may serve an important social justice objective by reducing racial disparities in arrest rates. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reports and a generalized difference-in-differences approach, we find support for this claim: RML adoption is associated with a reduction of 498–561 marijuana arrests per 100,000 persons (over 90 percent) among Black adults and a reduction of 128–145 arrests (78–88 percent) among White adults. However, we find no evidence that RML adoption reduces racial disparities in nonmarijuana drug arrests or arrests for property and violent crimes, and post-RML reallocation of policing resources to fight nonmarijuana drug crime and violent crime may, in some circumstances, widen these racial disparities. Finally, RMLs reduce opioid-related mortality among non-Hispanic Whites relative to Blacks and Hispanics, consistent with the hypothesis that those hardest hit at the outset of the US opioid epidemic disproportionately gain from recreational marijuana legalization.
中文摘要
娱乐性大麻合法化（RML）的支持者认为，扩大大麻合法获取渠道可通过减少逮捕率中的种族差异，实现重要的社会公正目标。基于《统一犯罪报告》数据并采用广义双重差分法，我们验证了这一主张：RML实施后，黑人成年人每10万人中大麻相关逮捕人数减少498-561人（降幅超90%），白人成年人减少128-145人（降幅78%-88%）。然而，未发现RML实施能缩小非大麻类毒品逮捕、财产犯罪及暴力犯罪逮捕中的种族差异；在特定情境下，RML实施后警务资源向非大麻毒品犯罪与暴力犯罪的重新配置，反而可能加剧这些领域的种族差异。此外，相较于黑人与西班牙裔群体，RML显著降低了非西班牙裔白人的阿片类药物相关死亡率，这与"美国阿片类药物危机初期受影响最严重群体从娱乐性大麻合法化中获益更多"的假说一致。