Increasing Liberalization: A Time Series Analysis of the Public's Mood toward Drugs

Previous research suggests that American drug sentiment is becoming more liberal. However, the absence of a reliable and valid over time measure limits our understanding of changes in drug attitudes. This project utilizes the dyad ratios algorithm and 298 administrations of 66 unique survey indicators to develop a measure of public mood toward drugs from 1969 to 2021. I find that drug mood has trended more liberal since the late 2000s. I then test for the predictors and consequences of drug mood empirically using ARMAX modeling. Results suggest that the violent crime rate, presidential rhetoric on drugs, and college attendance are not significant predictors of drug mood, but punitiveness is significant and negative. Moreover, only drug mood emerges as a significant and negative predictor of punitiveness. Granger causality tests indicate that drug mood Granger causes changes in punitiveness. These results elucidate the socio-political dynamics regarding public opinion toward drug policy.