TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Balestra, Simone
AU  - Liebert, Helge
AU  - Maestas, Nicole
AU  - Sherry, Tisamarie B.
        TI  - Behavioral Responses to Supply-Side Drug Policy During the Opioid Epidemic
        PY  - 2022/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15221
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15221
        AB  - We investigate behavioral responses to a staggered disruption in the supply of prescription opioids across U.S. states: the introduction of electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). Using administrative datasets, we find PDMPs curtail the proliferation of prescription opioids. Physicians respond to monitoring on the extensive margin, limiting the number of patients to whom they prescribe opioids without adjusting dosage or duration. This decreases supply to long-term opioid users, who evade the restrictions by acquiring prescriptions from out-of-state prescribers and by substituting to heroin. This causes a surge in heroin overdoses, which offsets reductions in hospitalizations and deaths from prescription opioids.
        KW  - prescription drugs
KW  - opioid crisis
KW  - heroin
KW  - prescription drug monitoring programs
        ER  -