There has been heightened public concern about the implications of recreational marijuana legalization to public safety. Prior research on this issue has primarily focused on Colorado and Washington State—the two states that first legalized recreational marijuana in the U.S.—and on legalization’s impact on major crimes. This study extends this line of research to Oregon (OR, legalized in late 2014) and examines the impact of legalization on a less serious form of violent crime—simple assault. Using Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data from 2007 to 2017 and a quasi-experimental research design, this study found that counties in OR have experienced increases in simple assault rate following legalization, relative to rates in the 19 non-legalized states. Findings suggest the need for more scholarly efforts to explore the potential impact of marijuana legalization on different subtypes of violent crime in other legalized states.

公众越来越关注娱乐性大麻合法化对公共安全的影响。此前对此问题的研究主要集中在科罗拉多州和华盛顿州——这两个州首先在美国将休闲大麻合法化——以及合法化对重大犯罪的影响。本研究将这一研究领域扩展到俄勒冈州（俄勒冈州，2014 年底合法化），并研究了合法化对不太严重的暴力犯罪形式（简单攻击）的影响。使用 2007 年至 2017 年的统一犯罪报告 (UCR) 计划数据和准实验研究设计，本研究发现，与 19 个非合法化州的比率相比，合法化后 OR 县的简单袭击率有所增加。