TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pacula,R. L.
AU  - Grossman,M.
AU  - Chaloupka,F. J.
AU  - O'Malley,P. M.
AU  - Johnston,L.
AU  - Farrelly,M. C.
TI  - Marijuana and Youth
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7703
PY  - 2000
Y2  - May 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7703
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7703.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rosalie Liccardo Pacula
RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
Tel: 310/393-0411 ext. 6494
Fax: 858/350-8798
E-Mail: pacula@rand.org

Michael Grossman
Ph.D. Program in Economics
City University of New York Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY  10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7959
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: mgrossman@gc.cuny.edu

Frank J. Chaloupka, IV
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Economics (m/c 144)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
601 S. Morgan Street, Room 713
Chicago, IL  60607-7121
Tel: 312/413-2287
Fax: 312/996-3344;630/801-8870
E-Mail: fjc@uic.edu
M1  - published as Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Michael Grossman, Frank J. Chaloupka, Patrick M. O’Malley, Lloyd D. Johnston, Matthew C. Farrelly. "Marijuana and Youth," in Jonathan Gruber, editor, "Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis" University of Chicago Press (2001)

AB  - This paper contains the first estimates of the price sensitivity of the prevalence of youth marijuana use.  Survey data on marijuana use by high school seniors from the Monitoring the Future Project are combined with data on marijuana prices and potency from the Drug Enforcement Administration Office of Intelligence or Intelligence Division.  Our estimates of the price elasticity of annual marijuana participation range from 0.06 to  0.47, while those for thirty day participation range from  0.002 to  0.69.  These estimates clearly imply that changes in the real, quality adjusted price of marijuana contributed significantly to the trends in youth marijuana use between 1982 and 1998, particularly during the contraction in use from 1982 to 1992.  Similarly, changes in youth perceptions of the harms associated with regular marijuana use had a substantial impact on both the contraction in use during the 1982 though 1992 period and the subsequent expansion in use after 1992. These findings underscore the usefulness of considering price in addition to more traditional determinants in any analysis of marijuana consumption decisions made by youths.
ER  -