The Effect of Recreational Marijuana Law on Alcohol Consumption

Abstract

A growing literature has examined whether recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) have an association with health-related outcomes. However, it is still unclear whether RMLs is associated with alcohol consumption. In this paper, we study retail scanner data on alcoholic beverage purchases across US counties from 2006 to 2019 to investigate the relationship between RMLs and alcohol consumption. Using the variation in the timing of RML enactment across states, we identify a complementary effect between marijuana and alcohol. These results remain robust with different specifications for RMLs in treated states.