Search results

Drug courts have been widely praised as an important tool for reducing prison and jail populations by diverting drug-involved offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. Yet only a small share of offenders presenting with drug abuse or dependence are processed in drug courts. This study uses inmate self-report surveys from 2002 and 2004 to examine characteristics of the prison and jail populations in the United States and assess why so many drug-involved offenders are incarcerated. Our analysis shows that four factors have prevented drug courts from substantially lowering the flow into prisons and jails. In descending order of importance, these are: drug courts' tight eligibility requirements, specific sentencing requirements, legal consequences of program noncompliance, and constraints in drug court capacity and funding. Drug courts will only be able to help lower prison and jail populations if substantial changes are made in eligibility and sentencing rules.

This paper sheds light on previous inconsistencies identified in the literature regarding the relationship between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and recreational marijuana use by closely examining the importance of policy dimensions (registration requirements, home cultivation, dispensaries) and the timing of when particular policy dimensions are enacted. Using data from our own legal analysis of state MMLs, we evaluate which features are associated with adult and youth recreational and heavy use by linking these policy variables to data from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). We employ differences-in-differences techniques, controlling for state and year fixed effects, allowing us to exploit within-state policy changes. We find that while simple dichotomous indicators of MML laws are not positively associated with marijuana use or abuse, such measures hide the positive influence legal dispensaries have on adult and youth use, particularly heavy use. Sensitivity analyses that help address issues of policy endogeneity and actual implementation of dispensaries support our main conclusion that not all MML laws are the same. Dimensions of these policies, in particular legal protection of dispensaries, can lead to greater recreational marijuana use and abuse among adults and those under the legal age of 21 relative to MMLs without this supply source. [Copyright John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.]