A Puff of Smoke: Medical Marijuana Laws and Tobacco Use

Anna Choi, Cornell University
Dhaval Dave, Bentley University

Using repeated cross-sectional data from three national datasets—the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements, and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health—this study is the first to comprehensively examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and adult tobacco consumption. Preliminary difference-in-difference estimates suggest that MMLs are associated with an increase in cigarette consumption at both the extensive and intensive margins for adult males. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of controls for state-level anti-marijuana sentiment, state-specific time trends, policy leads, and the use of a synthetic control for each treatment state. We find less consistent evidence that MMLs affect tobacco use among females.