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Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation

AIMS: To date there has been limited analysis of the economic costs and benefits associated with cannabis legalisation. This study redresses this gap. A cost benefit analysis of two cannabis policy options the status quo (where cannabis use is illegal) and a legalised–regulated option was conducted....

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Autores principales: Shanahan, Marian, Ritter, Alison
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24755942
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095569
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author Shanahan, Marian
Ritter, Alison
author_facet Shanahan, Marian
Ritter, Alison
author_sort Shanahan, Marian
collection PubMed
description AIMS: To date there has been limited analysis of the economic costs and benefits associated with cannabis legalisation. This study redresses this gap. A cost benefit analysis of two cannabis policy options the status quo (where cannabis use is illegal) and a legalised–regulated option was conducted. METHOD: A cost benefit analysis was used to value the costs and benefits of the two policies in monetary terms. Costs and benefits of each policy option were classified into five categories (direct intervention costs, costs or cost savings to other agencies, benefits or lost benefits to the individual or the family, other impacts on third parties, and adverse or spill over events). The results are expressed as a net social benefit (NSB). FINDINGS: The mean NSB per annum from Monte Carlo simulations (with the 5 and 95 percentiles) for the status quo was $294.6 million AUD ($201.1 to $392.7 million) not substantially different from the $234.2 million AUD ($136.4 to $331.1 million) for the legalised–regulated model which excludes government revenue as a benefit. When government revenue is included, the NSB for legalised–regulated is higher than for status quo. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate the significant impact of educational attainment and wellbeing as drivers for the NSB result. CONCLUSION: Examining the percentiles around the two policy options, there appears to be no difference between the NSB for these two policy options. Economic analyses are essential for good public policy, providing information about the extent to which one policy is substantially economically favourable over another. In cannabis policy, for these two options this does not appear to be the case.
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spelling pubmed-39957982014-04-25 Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation Shanahan, Marian Ritter, Alison PLoS One Research Article AIMS: To date there has been limited analysis of the economic costs and benefits associated with cannabis legalisation. This study redresses this gap. A cost benefit analysis of two cannabis policy options the status quo (where cannabis use is illegal) and a legalised–regulated option was conducted. METHOD: A cost benefit analysis was used to value the costs and benefits of the two policies in monetary terms. Costs and benefits of each policy option were classified into five categories (direct intervention costs, costs or cost savings to other agencies, benefits or lost benefits to the individual or the family, other impacts on third parties, and adverse or spill over events). The results are expressed as a net social benefit (NSB). FINDINGS: The mean NSB per annum from Monte Carlo simulations (with the 5 and 95 percentiles) for the status quo was $294.6 million AUD ($201.1 to $392.7 million) not substantially different from the $234.2 million AUD ($136.4 to $331.1 million) for the legalised–regulated model which excludes government revenue as a benefit. When government revenue is included, the NSB for legalised–regulated is higher than for status quo. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate the significant impact of educational attainment and wellbeing as drivers for the NSB result. CONCLUSION: Examining the percentiles around the two policy options, there appears to be no difference between the NSB for these two policy options. Economic analyses are essential for good public policy, providing information about the extent to which one policy is substantially economically favourable over another. In cannabis policy, for these two options this does not appear to be the case. Public Library of Science 2014-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC3995798/ /pubmed/24755942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095569 Text en © 2014 Shanahan, Ritter http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Shanahan, Marian
Ritter, Alison
Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title_full Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title_fullStr Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title_full_unstemmed Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title_short Cost Benefit Analysis of Two Policy Options for Cannabis: Status Quo and Legalisation
title_sort cost benefit analysis of two policy options for cannabis: status quo and legalisation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24755942
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095569
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