Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: A Review

Maclean, Johanna Catherine; Mallatt, Justine; Ruhm, Christopher J.; Simon, Kosali

doi:10.3386/w28067

Cited by 54 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…A number of studies have examined the effect of economic change on opioid use and abuse (for a review, see Maclean et al 2020). The general finding confirms the results above: economic change over the past few decades is related to opioid overdose deaths, but the impact of economic changes on the rise in overall opioid use is modest.…”

Section: Other Studies Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 68%

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic

Cutler

Glaeser

2021

Journal of Economic Perspectives

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The fourfold increase in opioid deaths between 2000 and 2017 rivals even the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis for America. Why did it happen? Measures of demand for pain relief – physical pain and despair – are high and in many cases rising, but their increase was nowhere near as large as the increase in deaths. The primary shift is in supply, primarily of new forms of allegedly safer narcotics. These new pain relievers flowed in greater volume to areas with more physical pain and mental health impairment, but since their apparent safety was an illusion, opioid deaths followed. By the end of the 2000s, restrictions on legal opioids led to further supply-side innovations, which created the burgeoning illegal market that accounts for the bulk of opioid deaths today. Because opioid use is easier to start than end, America's opioid epidemicis likely to persist for some time.

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Section: Other Studies Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 68%

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic

Cutler

Glaeser

2021

Journal of Economic Perspectives

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“…Our sample consists of 812 state-quarters in 29 states from 2011 to 2017. We begin our study period in 2011 because the reformulation of Oxycontin in 2010 affected changes to the opioid epidemic that varied across states (Maclean et al, 2020). The year 2017 is the last in which many states report Fast Stats data.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Recreational cannabis laws and opioid‐related emergency department visit rates

et al. 2021

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The opioid epidemic in the United States has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred between June 2019 and May 2020-the highest ever recorded in a one-year period (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Meanwhile, 17 states have legalized recreational cannabis. Over a third of the U.S. population now lives in a state with a recreational cannabis law (RCL) (ProCon.Org, 2021; U.S. Census Bureau, 2021).RCLs were not originally adopted to mitigate the opioid epidemic, though they may have the potential to reduce opioid use. Recent empirical evidence suggests cannabis is a substitute for prescription opioids in pain management (Shi et al., 2019;Wen & Hockenberry, 2018;Wen et al., 2021). In addition, there is some clinical evidence suggesting cannabis may mitigate opioid withdrawal symptoms (Wiese & Wilson-Poe, 2018). These findings are promising because RCLs, unlike medical cannabis laws (MCLs), make cannabis available to the entire population and thus have a larger imspact on cannabis use (Hollingsworth et al., 2020). However, cannabis does not directly treat the symptoms of opioid use disorder, for which medications for opioid use disorder are the only clinically effective treatment.

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“…Several scholars have focused on the causes (e.g., Currie & Schwandt, 2020; Maclean et al, 2020) and more general consequences of the opioid crisis as it relates to misuse and addiction (see Maclean et al, 2020 for a general review of this literature). As a response to opioid abuse and a clear result of the severity of the opioid crisis at hand, access to naloxone has increased in many regions of the United States to potentially save lives in the event of an overdose.…”

Section: Prescription Opioids and Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

Theft, Opioid Pills, Unemployment, and Insurance: A Longitudinal Analysis of American Counties in the Wake of the Opioids Crisis

Confer

Boman

Pryor

et al. 2021

Journal of Drug Issues

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This study examines the relationships between prescription opioid pills, unemployment, health insurance, and theft. Covering the years 2006–2012, our data are an aggregate of information from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, and the American Community Survey (ACS). The unit of analysis is time nested within counties. Preliminary results demonstrate that there were approximately 46 prescription opioid pills distributed per person annually in the United States between 2006 and 2012. Multivariate results reveal that counties with higher numbers of prescription opioid pills tend to experience significantly higher patterns of theft. Interestingly, health insurance is positively associated with theft while unemployment appears to protect against theft. The relationship between pills and theft is also conditioned by both unemployment and health insurance. Future research should explore these relationships to better inform efforts at making responsible social policy in the midst of the opioids crisis.

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Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: A Review

Cited by 54 publications

References 118 publications

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic

Recreational cannabis laws and opioid‐related emergency department visit rates

Theft, Opioid Pills, Unemployment, and Insurance: A Longitudinal Analysis of American Counties in the Wake of the Opioids Crisis

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