From Addiction to Aggression: The Spillover Effects of Opioid Policies on Intimate Partner Violence

We provide the first study of the downstream effects of a key supply-side intervention – the abuse-deterrent reformulation of a widely-diverted opioid, OxyContin – on intimate partner violence (IPV), the most common form of violence experienced by women. Leveraging administrative data on victim-reported incidents to law enforcement, combined with quasi-experimental methods, we find robust evidence that the reformulation significantly reduced IPV exposure for women. This overall decline, however, masks heterogeneity across subpopulations, and a notable uptick in heroin-involved IPV, underscoring the importance of identifying populations at high risk of substitution to illicit opioids and moderating this risk with evidence-based policies.