Motivation: Decriminalizing drug possession is a potential tool to disentangle the racial inequalities caused by drug prohibition. While possession decriminalization has been implemented in multiple countries, it had never been adopted in the US except for cannabis possession offenses. That changed when voters in Oregon passed Measure 110 (M-110) in 2020. M-110 made the personal possession of controlled substances a noncriminal offense that could be resolved by paying a fine or undergoing an assessment. While M-110 also increased funding for services for people who use drugs, there was a delay in new expenditures which created a natural experiment where the primary change was just decriminalization. This study examines whether decriminalization changed racial disparities in arrests.
Methods: Incident-level and aggregated arrest data are drawn from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident Based Reporting System and Uniform Crime Reports. Synthetic control and difference-in-differences designs will be used to evaluate how M-110 affected arrest patterns by race, along with sensitivity analyses to test modeling assumptions. Comparing these results across race, such as looking at how arrest rates changed in absolute and relative terms, will reveal whether M-110 affected racial inequality in arrests. Analyses will be conducted for arrests overall and by offense (e.g., drug possession and supply by substance; violent crime; property crime.)
Results: Analyses will be completed in April.
Implications: Results will provide evidence on whether decriminalization leads to a reduction in racial disparities in arrests for drugs and other offenses.
Beau Kilmer (he/him) is codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, a senior policy researcher at RAND, and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
His research lies at the intersection of public health and public safety, with special emphasis on substance use, illegal markets, crime control, and public policy. Some of his current projects include assessing the consequences of cannabis legalization (with a special focus on social equity); measuring the effect of 24/7 Sobriety programs on impaired driving, domestic violence, and mortality; analyzing changes in illegal fentanyl markets; and considering the implications of legalizing psychedelics.
Kilmer's publications have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science. His commentaries have been published by CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, among others. Two editions of his coauthored book on cannabis legalization were published by Oxford University Press; his coauthored book on the future of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids was published by RAND.
Kilmer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Public Health Consequences of Changes in the Cannabis Policy Landscape. In 2023, he was elected as vice president of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy. He received his Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University, M.P.P. from UC-Berkeley, and B.A. in international relations from Michigan State University.
Roland Neil is an Associate Behavioral/Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on topics such as public safety, racial inequality, and the criminal legal system. His work has been published in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Journal of Sociology, and Criminology & Public Policy. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.