Analysis of the Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Smoking among Adolescents before the Age of 13

Abstract

Adolescent smoking, with its detrimental effects on working memory and increased likelihood of heavy smoking when initiated at a younger age, this paper examines whether marijuana decriminalization policies affect adolescents’ likelihood of smoking before age 13. This paper mainly uses the stack Difference In Difference method to judge the relationship between the two and further proves the time-invariant through the stack event study method. Moreover, the CS model (double robust) was used to observe the different effects of different periods. This study attempts to discover the causes of early adolescent smoking and, to some extent, verify the possibility that cigarettes and marijuana are complementary commodities. This study found that marijuana decriminalization policies increased adolescents’ likelihood of smoking before age 13 by about 0.173%. At the same time, the time study shows that the policy may have a lag effect.