Rosalie Liccardo Pacula
Overview
Biography
Rosalie Liccardo Pacula is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She serves as codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Her research has largely focused on whether state and local public policies are cost-effective and effective at reducing substance abuse among youths. She had evaluated the impact of marijuana decriminalization and medicalization on marijuana use among youth; analyzed gender and racial differences in response to particular substance use policies; assessed the impact of higher cigarette and alcohol prices on demand for illicit substances; and conducted cost-benefit analyses of school-based drug prevention programs. Pacula has also helped to measure the size of illicit drug markets and prices. As part of this larger research agenda, she has done in-depth policy analyses of state-level parity legislation, medical marijuana policies, and decriminalization policy in the United States and abroad. Pacula has been a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) since 1997, participating in both the NBER Program on Health Economics and on Children. She is currently an assistant editor for the monthly journal Addiction. From 2003 through 2007, she was a member of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Health Services Scientific Review Committee and prior to that served for two years on National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Health Services Review Committee. Pacula received her Ph.D. in economics from Duke University.
Research Focus
Recent Projects
- Factors influencing the supply and demand for illicit drugs
- Marijuana policy reform (legalization and medical marijuana)
- Drugs and crime
- Impact of parity legislation on behavioral health care service utilization and cost
- Cost-effectiveness of prevention
Selected Publications
McCaffrey D, Pacula RL, Han B and Ellickson P, "Marijuana Use and High School Drop Out: The Influence of Unobservables," Health Economics, 2010
MacCoun R, Pacula RL et al., "Do Citizens Know Whether Their State Has Decriminalized Marijuana?" Review of Law and Economics, 2009
Nicosia, Nancy, et al., The Economic Cost of Methamphetamine Use in the United States, 2005, RAND Corporation (MG-829), 2009
Pacula RL, Ringel J, Dobkins C, and K Truong, "The Incremental Health Services Cost Associated with Marijuana Use," Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 92:248-257, 2008
Williams J. et al., "Alcohol and Marijuana Use Among College Students: Economic Complements or Substitutes?" Health Economics, 13, 2004
Hall, Wayne, and Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Cannabis Use and Dependence: Public Health and Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2003
Pacula RL et al., "State Medical Marijuana Laws: Understanding the Laws and Their Limitations," Journal of Public Health Policy, 23(4), 2002
Recent Media Appearances
Interviews: ACLU documentary on drug testing in schools; Arkansas Democrat Gazette; Copley News Service; Reuters
