Do vertical ID laws curb teenage drinking and tobacco use?

2025/05/07 by Russell L. Leonard, Joseph J. Sabia · 1 voice
Health Professions · Medicine · #Homelessness and Social Issues #Smoking Behavior and Cessation #Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes

paper · doi:10.1111/coep.12690

openalex publication_date 2025/05/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Abstract Vertical identification laws (VILs)—which require state drivers' licenses issued to individuals under age 21 to be vertically oriented—have been adopted widely across the United States. We find no evidence that VIL adoption has a statistically significant or economically important effect on teenage drinking and smoking. This result persists using Callaway and Sant'Anna estimates and extends to binge drinking, marijuana use, and drinking and driving. Finally, we show that prior estimates reported in the literature are sensitive to sample period studied, choice of Youth Risk Behavior Survey dataset, and accounting for heterogeneous and dynamic treatment effects.

Citations

• 2010 National and State Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption
• How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?
• Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption
• The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health
• CIGARETTE TAXES AND HOW YOUTHS OBTAIN CIGARETTES
• Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing
• Cigarette taxes and smoking among sexual minority adults
• CIGARETTE TAXES AND TEEN MARIJUANA USE
• Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects
• Revisiting the Minimum Wage—Employment Debate: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater?
• Comparative Effects of Recreational and Medical Marijuana Laws on Drug Use among Adults and Adolescents
• Minimum Wages and Poverty: New Evidence from Dynamic Difference-in-Differences Estimates

Discussions

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