Recent Scientific Accomplishments

Reuter’s recent research has largely focused on drug markets and drug policy. How do different kinds and intensities of enforcement affect the demand and supply of illegal drugs and the ways in which such drugs are sold? Recent co-authored articles in Socio Economic Planning Sciences and Contributions to Economic Analysis and Policy, examine how drug markets may behave in counter-intuitive ways that deviate from the classic economic predictions. His work also examines other interventions aimed at drug problems. A series of papers in Addiction have assessed a variety of drug policy issues, such as the likely consequences of treatment on the size of the drug addict population. In general, Reuter finds that while drug treatment lowers drug addiction at the individual level, and can be justified as a social program to promote health, it can not be justified on a pure cost effectiveness basis. However, the only alternative policy, intensified policing or sanctions, appear to neither reduce drug prevalence nor drug-related harm. This suggests no inexpensive solution to reducing the current rate of drug addition. In his 2006 American Journal of Public Health article with Harold Pollack, he examined whether the work requirements of welfare reform left a population of welfare recipients that had a higher propensity of drug abuse. A primary concern of welfare reform was that mothers with special needs, especially drug addition, would be insensitive to the work incentives put into place by welfare reform. The paper demonstrated that, contrary to predictions in 1996, when welfare reform was implemented, there has been a decrease in drug abuse in the welfare population. This decrease appears to reflecting a general decline in low income population so that there is no evidence of differential exit from welfare by a recipient’s degree of drug dependency.

Funded Research

Reuter served as prinicpal investigator (P.I.) for a 2005-2006 National Institute of Justice project that examined new approaches to estimating the crime reduction effects of incarceration. One element is an analysis of the effects of 2001 changes in sentencing rules in Maryland.

Future Plans

During the next five years, Reuter plans both to continue his long line of research on the performance of illegal markets and to expand into a new population sciences area. The population of drug addicts in the U.S. has been aging, with important consequences both for crime (positive) and health (negative). He is collaborating with Harold Pollack (U. Chicago) on a project to examine the likely path of these changes and the effects of various plausible policy interventions. This involves modeling with a variety of large scale data bases, such as the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Treatment Episode Data System, and Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring the impact of drug addition at a point in time and over time on health related outcomes.