The purpose of this project is to estimate the effectiveness of criminal justice expenditures and public health expenditures in reducing illicit drug participation. Tests for exogeniety of the two drug control spending indicated that the hypothesis of exogeniety of both criminal justice spending and public health spending can not be rejected. Since exogeniety of criminal justice spending and public health spending can be assumed, all of the equations are estimated as single equation probit models. The results show that criminal justice expenditure is insignificant and that public health expenditures are negative and significant.
Additional results disaggregate criminal justice spending and public health.
Police spending is negative and significant. Court spending is negative and significant in some specifications but insignificant in others. Prosecution and public defense spending are positive and significant. This perverse result may reflect variations in financing of the court systems in each state. Corrections spending is always insignificant.