Indopedia All Things Marijuana
Medical marijuana laws caused alcohol sales to tumble in many states, according to a new paper co-authored by Georgia State University Economics Professor Alberto Chong.
The impact on sales was long-term, with reductions in alcohol consumption observed up to two years after the passage of the laws. The findings boost scientific evidence that legal access to marijuana reduces drinking.
The researchers analyzed beer, wine and alcohol sales for more than 2,000 U.S. counties over a 10-year period (2006 to 2015). Chong and his collaborators used the Nielsen Retail Scanner database, which they note provides a more accurate measure of alcohol consumption than self-reported surveys, in which respondents are known to under-represent how much they drink.
They compared alcohol purchases between states that passed medical marijuana laws and states that didn’t, before and after the laws were…
