While there is an extensive literature on the relationship between drug use and crime, research on crime stemming from the recent uptick in opioid misuse is surprisingly sparse, and much of it provides contradictory answers. Using state‐level data and dynamic panel techniques, we find evidence of a large, positive association between nonmedical use of pain relievers and property crime. The correlation is strongest for the youngest users, holds for multiple classes of property crime, and its magnitude suggests hundreds of thousands of excess property crimes over the study period resulting from even modest increases in opioid abuse. We also present evidence of a link between prescribing rates and crime. Evidence of a link between pain relievers and violent crime is much weaker, as is evidence of an association between other drugs and crime. Our use of robust panel inference helps to address endogeneity concerns that can arise in other studies, many of which also draw conclusions from small or nonrepresentative samples.

中文翻译：

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处方阿片类药物滥用与财产犯罪

尽管有大量关于毒品使用与犯罪之间关系的文献，但是由于最近阿片类药物滥用的激增而引起的犯罪研究稀少，令人惊讶，而且其中许多提供了相互矛盾的答案。使用州级数据和动态面板技术，我们发现非医学用途的止痛药与财产犯罪之间存在着很大的正相关性。这种相关性对于最年轻的用户而言最强，对于多种类别的财产犯罪都适用，其幅度表明，在研究期内，由于阿片类药物滥用的适度增加，导致成千上万的过剩财产犯罪。我们还提供了开处方率与犯罪之间联系的证据。止痛药与暴力犯罪之间存在联系的证据要弱得多，其他毒品与犯罪之间存在联系的证据也很少。