Prescription drug monitoring programs,opioid abuse,and crime

We study the effects of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) on crime, and inform how policies that restrict access to Rx opioids per se within the healthcare system would impact broader non‐health domains. In response to the substantial increase in opioid use and misuse in the United States, PDMPs have been implemented in virtually all states to collect, monitor, and analyze prescription opioid data with the goal of preventing its misuse and diversion. Using a differences‐in‐differences approach and data on offenses known to law enforcement from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), we find that mandatory access PDMPs reduced overall crime by 5%, particularly driven by assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. Overall, these results provide evidence that appropriately designed PDMPs are an effective social policy tool to mitigate some of the negative consequences of opioid misuse, and more broadly indicate that opioid policies can have important spillover effects into crime.