On Your Side? The Effects of Good Samaritan Laws, Drug-Induced Homicide Laws, and Naloxone Access Laws on Opioid-Related Deaths
Abstract
I examine the effects of Good Samaritan laws (GSLs), drug-induced homicide laws (DIH laws), and naloxone access laws (NALs) on opioid-related deaths. Using a fixed effects OLS and Poisson approach similar to Rees et al. (2019), I find significant negative correlation early adopting NAL states, but significant positive correlation among later states. Parsing timespans by NAL enactment supports these results. DIH law coefficients are consistently positive and often significant across models and timespans. GSLs, when interacted with DIH laws, have a negative significant coefficient. When specifying GSLs to include only those states that have no DIH law, significance and negative magnitude increase. This continues when specifying GSLs whereby the bystander and victim are both protected and further when specified not to include GSLs which provide parole or probation protections. Generally, DIH laws and NALs are correlated with an increase in opioid-related deaths while GSLs are correlated with a decrease.