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Does expanding access to cannabis affect traffic crashes? County‐level evidence from recreational marijuana dispensary sales in Colorado
Author(s) -
Gunadi Christian
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.4573
Subject(s) - dispensary , cannabis , recreation , crash , environmental health , poison control , injury prevention , occupational safety and health , affect (linguistics) , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , demography , medicine , business , psychology , psychiatry , family medicine , political science , communication , pathology , computer science , law , programming language , sociology
This article examines the effect of recreational cannabis dispensary sales on traffic crashes by employing difference‐in‐differences model that exploits the variation in the timing of recreational marijuana dispensary entry across counties within Colorado. Using marijuana‐related hospital discharge as a measure of marijuana abuse/misuse, the results indicate a sizable rise in marijuana‐related hospital discharges after the entry of retail cannabis stores. However, there is a lack of evidence that traffic crash incidents are affected by the entry. The preferred estimate suggests that, at 90% confidence level, a large increase in traffic crashes by more than 5% can be ruled out.