Cannabis and Alcohol: Will Cannabis Users Use More Alcohol and How Legalization of Cannabis Affect This Trend?

Health and Social risks related to marijuana and alcohol are a serious problem in the United States. This research tried to introduce OLS regression in order to figure out the correlation between use of alcohol and cannabis, and the trend before and after legalization of cannabis, which is a factor that has not been researched in previous literature of alcohol, while a lot of controls were added to the model. It finds out that there is higher likelihood for marijuana users to co-use alcohol, but people tend to consume less alcohol if marijuana is legal. This may be because of the booster effect of cannabis on alcohol. These results might be a sign for future policymakers to implement more demand-side policies to reduce potential cannabis and alcohol addiction risks, as supply-side policies such as legalization might work in the opposite direction. For example, higher taxation on cannabis and alcohol might help.