Marijuana legalization and road safety: a panel study of US States

dc.contributor.authorYoung, Andrew R.
dc.date.accessioned2019-04-19T16:48:33Z
dc.date.available2019-04-19T16:48:33Z
dc.date.graduationmonthMayen_US
dc.date.issued2019-05-01
dc.date.published2019en_US
dc.description.abstractPolicymakers and the public are concerned about the road safety implications of legalizing marijuana. Despite the more than two decades of data since California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use, there has been surprisingly little research on this question. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature. Specifically, this research combines twenty-three years of state traffic data with information on the contemporaneous legal status of marijuana, for both medical and recreational use, to estimate two models of road safety. First, while treating both the state and the year as fixed effects, the resulting panel regression model estimates that the legalization of medical or recreational marijuana is not a predictor of the number of fatalities per 100,000 vehicle-miles traveled. Second, due to limitations in the regression model, a difference-in-difference analysis was conducted over the same period and found no relationship between legalization of medical marijuana and the number of fatalities per 100,000 vehicle-miles traveled. These findings suggest that concerns of policy makers and the public that legalizing marijuana will worsen road safety are not ungrounded at this time. According to the models, the recent upward trend of traffic fatality rates nationwide is not a result of medical marijuana legalization. In fact, the legalization of marijuana is not found to be a predictor of traffic fatalities.en_US
dc.description.advisorGregory L. Newmarken_US
dc.description.degreeMaster of Regional and Community Planningen_US
dc.description.departmentDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planningen_US
dc.description.levelMastersen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipDwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Programen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2097/39647
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.subjectPanel Studyen_US
dc.subjectDifference-in-Differencesen_US
dc.subjectMarijuana Legalizationen_US
dc.subjectRoad Safetyen_US
dc.titleMarijuana legalization and road safety: a panel study of US Statesen_US
dc.typeReporten_US

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