Researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Irvine assessed the impact of marijuana dispensary closures on neighborhood crime rates in the City of Los Angeles. Researchers analyzed crime data in the days immediately prior to and then immediately after the City ordered several hundred marijuana dispensaries to be closed. Results were reported in the Journal of Urban Economics.
Surprisingly, researchers discovered that the marijuana dispensary closures were associated with a significant increase in crime in the blocks immediately surrounding a closed dispensary, compared with the blocks around marijuana dispensaries allowed to remain open.
The study results demonstrated that the marijuana dispensaries were not the crime magnets that they were often described as, but instead reduced crime in their immediate vicinity.
“We find no evidence that closures decreased crime,” authors wrote. “Instead, we find a significant relative increase in crime around closed dispensaries.”
And when breaking down the effect by types of crime, researchers found that the increases in crime after marijuana dispensary closures were driven by the types of crime most plausibly deterred by bystanders: property crime and theft from vehicles.
Specifically, researchers estimated that an open marijuana dispensary provides over $30,000 per year in social benefit in terms of larcenies prevented.
Read the full report – Going to pot? The impact of dispensary closures on crime.