A co-authored paper by Assistant Professor Francesco Principe of Erasmus School of Economics on light cannabis and crime in Italy is attracting huge media attention. The research paper titled "Light cannabis and organised crime: Evidence from (unintended) liberalisation in Italy" was published last April in the European Economic Review.
Together with Vincenzo Carrieri (University of Magna Greece of Catanzaro) and Leonardo Madio (University of Louvain, Belgium), Francesco Principe of Erasmus School of Economics conducted research on the unintended liberalisation of light cannabis that occurred in Italy in December 2016 by means of a legislative gap in order to assess its effect on the illegal supply of marijuana.
The researchers found that the liberalisation of light cannabis led to a reduction of up to 14% in marijuana confiscations per each pre-existing grow shop and a significant decrease in both other cannabis-derived drugs and the number of people arrested for drug-related offences. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that forgone revenues for criminal organizations sum up to at least 90–170 million euros per year. These results support the argument that the supply of illegal drugs is displaced by the entry of official and legal retailers.
For the article in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica (9 May 2019), click here.
- Assistant professor