| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation is the first to examine the effects of cannabis access laws on sleep, all auto accidents and substitution trends between medical and recreational purchases. In chapter 1, using a difference-in-difference design, I find that medical marijuana laws have no impact on sleep, while recreational marijuana laws cause people to lose an average of 38 minutes of weekly sleep. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that these sleep reductions translate to around $200 billion in annual losses. In chapter 2, I examine the effects of cannabis access laws on car crashes using a novel dataset I compile of all car accidents in 44 US states. I find that medical marijuana laws have no impact on crashes, while states recreational marijuana laws are associated with at least 10,000 fewer crashes per year. Chapter 3 examines the relationship between medical marijuana programs and recreational marijuana programs to better understand if this relationship is causal and why consumers switch from one to the other. I first document the substitution from medical to recreational cannabis that occurs when the latter becomes available. I add causal evidence for this relationship by comparing Arizona’s medical cannabis trends before- and after- recreational sales initiation to New Mexico’s medical cannabis trends during the same period, and I find that Arizona saw a dip in medical cannabis while New Mexico did not. I then try to tease out why consumers switch to recreational marijuana. It could be that marijuana is simply easier to obtain, so consumers who view cannabis in a medical sense still turn to the recreational market. I find evidence to the contrary. Overall, this indicates that a large fraction of consumers likely uses medical cannabis programs to obtain drugs rather than to explore expert medical counsel from healthcare providers. | |
