Rosalie Liccardo Pacula

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.