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by Frank Chaloupka Adit Laixuthai National
Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Data from the 1982 and
1989 Monitoring the Future Surveys are used to examine the substitutability
of alcoholic beverages and marijuana among youths. Beer prices and minimum
legal drinking ages are used as measures of the full price of alcohol,
while an indicator or marijuana decriminalization and its money price
capture the full price of marijuana. Results indicate that drinking frequency
and heavy drinking episodes are negatively related to beer prices, but
positively related to the full price of marijuana. The implications of
this substitution for one of the consequences of youth substance abuse,
driving while intoxicated, is examined using information on youth non-fatal
accidents taken from the surveys and on youth fatal motor vehicle accidents
constructed from the Fatal Accident Reporting System. These results indicate
that the net effect of an increase in the full price of alcoholic beverages
on the probability of a youth traffic crash is negative. However, the
opposite is found for marijuana. That is, the results imply that the reduction
in accidents resulting from substitution away from alcoholic beverages
and other intoxicating substances to marijuana as its full price is lowed
more than offsets the increase in accidents related to marijuana use.
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