The Impact of Cannabis Use on HealthWilliams, Jenny; Skeels, Christopher
doi: 10.1007/s10645-006-9028-8pmid: N/A
Chronic daily cannabis use has been shown to have long term harmful health effects, which in turn is expected to reduce labour market productivity. The evidence is less clear on the health impact of less frequent consumption, which is the more typical mode of use, and previous empirical studies fail to find robust evidence of an adverse impact of these modes of use on labour market productivity. This paper attempts to shed some light on this issue by directly estimating the impact of cannabis consumption in the past week and past year on health status using information on prime age individuals living in Australia. We find that cannabis use does reduce self-assessed health status, with the effect of weekly use being of a similar magnitude as smoking cigarettes daily. Moreover, we find evidence of a dose-response relationship in the health impact of cannabis use, with annual use having roughly half the impact of weekly use.
Drug Demand – Initiation, Continuation and QuittingBretteville-Jensen, Anne
doi: 10.1007/s10645-006-9027-9pmid: N/A
As illicit drug use inflicts considerable harm on users, non-using persons and society, there is an urgent need to better understand demand. Unlawfulness and addictiveness separate the consumption of narcotic drugs from the consumption of other commodities. This paper reviews economic approaches to the task of analysing drug consumption and discusses some recent contributions to the field. We find it useful to apply a threefold division to a user’s career: the initiation phase, the continuation phase and the quitting phase. First, however, we present an analysis of drug injectors’ heroin demand based on a large set of personal interviews (n = 2882) and illustrate some of the problems affecting empirical studies in this field. An estimated price elasticity of −0.77 and income elasticity of 0.56 suggest a high level of responsiveness to economic incentives among heavy drug users.
The History of Licit Cocaine in the NetherlandsBos, Annemarie
doi: 10.1007/s10645-006-9031-0pmid: N/A
This paper gives a description of the rise and fall of cocaine business in the Netherlands, between 1910 and 1930 when cocaine was a legal drug. When the anesthetic effects of cocaine were discovered demand for cocaine rose quickly. This made the production of coca leaves in the Dutch East Indies and the production of cocaine in the Netherlands a profitable business. However within the time span of two decades the introduction of synthetic replacements stimulated by international legislation to reduce drugs use caused the disappearance of the legal trade of coca and cocaine.