‘High’‐School: The Relationship between Early Marijuana Use and Educational Outcomes

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der ArbeitInstitute for the Study The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public.IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. We use unique survey data linked to nearly a decade of administrative welfare data to examine the relationship between early marijuana use (at age 14 or younger) and young people's educational outcomes. We find evidence that early marijuana use is related to educational penalties that are compounded by high-intensity use and are larger for young people living in families with a history of welfare receipt. The relationships between marijuana use and both high school completion and achieving a university entrance score appear to stem from selectivity into the use of marijuana. In contrast, early marijuana use is associated with significantly lower university entrance score for those who obtain one and we provide evidence that this effect is unlikely to be driven by selection. Collectively, these findings point to a more nuanced view of the relationship between adolescent marijuana use and educational outcomes than is suggested by the existing literature. JEL Classification:I20, I24, I10, I18

‘High’ Achievers? Cannabis Access and Academic Performance

“…Opponents of cannabis legalization often argue that making access to cannabis easier and more acceptable via legalization could push more marginal individuals to become consumers. This could in turn lead to an increase in the number of individuals suffering from adverse health, educational, and labor market outcomes associated with regular cannabis use (Cobb-Clark et al 2015;Hall 2015 andVan Ours andWilliams, 2015).…”

Early Illicit Drug Use and The Age of Onset of Homelessness

“…In other words, once you have been homeless—and almost all of the sample that was studied by McVicar et al . () had prior experience of homelesssness—changes in drug use behaviour have little effect on changes in homelessness status. Neither McVicar et al .…”

“…() and Cobb‐Clark et al . ()). Another strand of the literature concerns drug use effects on wages and other labour market outcomes, where estimated effects range from positive (e.g.…”

“…This is also the case in the wider homelessness–substance abuse literature with the partial exception of McVicar et al . () which used longitudinal data from the Australian ‘Journeys home’ (JH) study to estimate the effect of changes in substance use on changes in homelessness status by using individual fixed effects models. Conditionally on these fixed effects they found no effect of cannabis use or other illicit drug use on homelessness, although they did find an effect of heavy alcohol use.…”

“…Neither McVicar et al . () nor any other existing study, however, presents convincing quantitative evidence on whether the initial take‐up of drug use behaviours impacts on the probability of becoming homeless for the first time , i.e. onset of homelessness.…”