Sunday, August 7, 2022

Abstract for Nudging Illegal and Legal Drug Use

Much of the appeal of policy nudges is that when successful, they offer effectiveness at low cost, and without requiring coercion. But nudges are often used within regulatory regimes that also feature elements of coercion, as when forced savings plans such as social security are teamed with nudges designed to encourage pension contributions.

Drug prohibition is highly coercive and also quite venerable: arguments in support of, and in opposition to, the prohibition of recreational drugs are well-known. The growth of nudge theory and practice suggests a new sort of comparison, that between the prohibitory status quo supplemented with nudges, and a legalization regime also incorporating nudges. Does the potential for beneficial nudging improve the relative case for drug legalization, or does it offer a better style of prohibition that would capture some of the benefits of a more liberalized regime, while skirting the risks of legalization? 

In addressing this question, this paper first identifies nudge-supplemented drug regulatory regimes within both the prohibitory status quo and a reasonable legal alternative. Within a regime of prohibition, appropriate nudges might be able to improve the uptake of treatment, or to enhance compliance with a harm reduction regimen, for instance. In a legal drug control system, nudges can be used to capture some of the benefits that prohibition might bring in terms of dissuading imprudent drug consumption, while securing those benefits without threatening drug users with criminal penalties. Comparisons between the likely consequences of the nudge-enhanced alternatives will then be made. Evidence for likely consequences can to some extent be drawn from existing drug policy regimes: state-level legalizations of cannabis in the past decade provide evidence for the value of some nudges within a legal regime, for instance, while the states that have not legalized also offer various models for nudging under prohibition. Decriminalization regimes, as in Portugal or Oregon, present a further intermediate case, one where the demand side for drugs (including cannabis but also “harder” drugs) is more-or-less legal while the supply side remains under a strict prohibition. 


OK, this is more a general plan of attack than it is an abstract, but it is what we have now. Onto Draft 1!


Friday, August 5, 2022

Paper on Nudging Illegal and Legal Drug Use

In about a month I must produce a paper on drugs and nudges. I can't really start today, alas. But I must finish in a month. I will track the process (and, I note aspirationally, post the drafts) here.

Long-Delayed Update on the Russian Vice Policy Paper...

 ...provided in a search for closure so that the next pressing project can come to the pages on Five Drafts.

I am happy to report that the published version is available in Policy Sciences. Rush to the link to be the first on your block to access this shiny newish article!

For more on what I have been up to, please see this nDrafts post

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Russian Vice Policy Schedule

The working title of the Russian vice policy paper is "Vice Policy in Russia: Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling"; my goal is to have a first draft complete (and posted here) by September 15, 2016. The deadline for the second draft is October 9, 2016, and the third and final (?) draft is slated for October 30, 2016. As for reading commitments, maybe a book each on alcohol, tobacco, and gambling? I'll start with alcohol -- perhaps Alcohol: A History, by Rod Phillips?

OK, here we go...

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Parthenon Marbles Update [Itself Updated, August 8, 2016]

Although I did not post any drafts, the Parthenon Marbles paper was completed and presented in a timely fashion. My next goal is to revise it and to post the revision to ssrn.com; perhaps I will think about sending it to a journal, too. But let me "commit" to a posting date of February 29, 2016 -- that one seems memorable.

Update, August 8, 2016: OK, the February 29 deadline proved to be not all that committing, even if it is memorable. But the ssrn version has been posted, and is available here. Next up will be a few (five?) drafts of a paper on Russian vice policy...

Second Vice Paper, Regulating Vice, Revisited

Nearly two years ago I posted a draft of the second vice paper, "Regulating Vice". The final version was published some months ago, in Erich Goode, ed, The Handbook of Deviance, Wiley Handbooks in Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2015. A final pre-editing version is now available at ssrn.com.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Next Up: The Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum

Though kidneys, vice, and Law and Economics are not exactly behind me, the next public commitment is to produce a paper on the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum. I aim to have the final draft done by September 15, 2015. The topic received some attention in my Law and Economics book, and I want to expand upon it. So, the first draft I am scheduling for July 15, 2015, and the second draft for August 31, 2015. That's all, two drafts and a "final" version. I am becoming more economical with drafts, and might even move to an all-volunteer system eventually -- I hear that such systems are more efficient than relying upon a draft.