pThis paper reports estimates of the price elasticity of demand for heroin based on a newly constructed dataset. The dataset has two matched components concerning the same sample of regular heroin users: longitudinal information about real-world heroin demand (actual price and actual quantity at daily intervals for each heroin user in the sample) and experimental information about laboratory heroin demand(elicited by presenting the same heroin users with scenarios in a laboratory setting). Two empirical strategies are used to estimate the price elasticity of demand for heroin. The first strategy exploits the idiosyncratic variation in the price experienced by a heroin user over time that occurs in markets for illegal drugs. The second strategy exploits the experimentally induced variation in price experienced by a heroin user across experimental scenarios. Both empirical strategies result in the estimate that the conditional price elasticity of demand for heroin is approximately -0.80./p
Objective: to examine the roles of facility- and state-level factors in treatment facilities' adoption and diffusion of pharmaceutical agents used in addiction treatment.
Data Sources: secondary data from the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Alcohol Policy Information System and Kaiser Family Foundation.
Study Design: We estimate ordered logit and multinomial logit models to examine the relationship of state and treatment facility characteristics to the adoption and diffusion of three pharmaceutical agents over four years when each was at a different stage of adoption or diffusion.
Data collection: N-SSATS data with facility codes, obtained directly from SAMHSA, were linked by state identifiers to the other publicly available, secondary data.
Principal Findings: The analysis confirms the importance of awareness and exposure to the adoption behavior of others, dissemination of information about the feasibility and effectiveness of innovations, geographical clustering, and licensing and accreditation in legitimizing facilities' adoption and continued use of pharmacotherapies in addiction treatment.
Conclusions: Policy and administrative levers exist to increase the availability of pharmaceutical technologies and their continued use by substance abuse treatment facilities.