Dispensary as a Factor in Reducing Consumption of Addictive Goods

The present study is devoted to investigating the probability of reducing the hard drugs consumption. This paper makes use of newly available data on drug-addicted patients that are provided by the office for substance abuse counselors of N city (Russia, Perm region). Due to the international medical research a large amount of data has been accumulated and suggest that narcological dispensary has a significant impact in reducing the consumption of illicit drugs. However, the econometric evaluation of the problem still remains unexplored due to the lack of access to the data. Scientific novelty of this research is in econometric estimation of dispensary as a factor in reducing drug use. Based on the unique data from the office for substance abuse counselors of N city the binary model (logit- and probit- models) was evaluated. It allows to take into account not only the fact, but the frequency and urgency of medical treatment. According to the obtained results, dispensary has a significant positive impact on the reduction of drug consumption. Interestingly, an increase in the number of treatment, the probability of drug consumption decreases. Moreover, the model shows the optimal number of treatment in dispensary, where the cessation probability is the highest. In addition to the scientific novelty, the present paper also provides useful results for drug abuse policy. Keywords: dispensary, the probability of reducing the hard drugs consumption