Northern California study: strong cannabis laws keep teens safer

[#item_full_content] OAKLAND, Calif. — Teens in California communities that allow cannabis stores and have weak retail rules were 22% more likely to report using cannabis in the past year than teens in communities with strong protections, according to a new study. The research was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.Researchers examined cannabis use among nearly 89,000 adolescents ages 13 to 17 across 173 Northern California cities and counties. The study showed that where local rules were strongest, past year teen use was statistically indistinguishable from teen use in communities that ban cannabis stores outright.Compared with teens in communities that ban retail sales outright, those in communities that allowed cannabis stores but had weaker retail regulations were 28% more likely to use cannabis. This held true even after accounting for the number of nearby stores.Teen use was higher in cities and counties with weak pricing policies than in communities that prohibited storefronts. Teen use was also higher in areas with more nearby cannabis retailers.”This study provides important new evidence that local policies putting young people’s health first can make a real difference,” Alisa Padon, Ph.D. said.Padon is the lead author on the study and research director at Getting it Right from the Start, a program of the Public Health Institute. She noted that the organization’s California Cannabis Local Policy Scorecards have tracked cities and counties’ adoption of cannabis policies for years.”These findings validate and reinforce the importance of strong local retail safeguards and pricing policies designed to reach youth,” Padon said. “With the scorecards, these give parents a valuable tool to see how their own communities measure up, and where more needs to be done.”The study examined several types of local policies intended to protect young people. Retail regulations included limiting the number of cannabis retailers, keeping stores away from schools and other places young people gather, requiring minimum distances between stores and restricting on-site cannabis consumption and temporary retail events.Pricing policies included taxing cannabis locally and dedicating revenue to youth services and prevention efforts. Most local marketing and product rules were not linked to lower teen use once store density was considered.”Protecting young people requires looking beyond individual choices to the communities they live in,” Kelly C. Young-Wolff, Ph.D. said. Young-Wolff is the study co-author and research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.”Our findings suggest that both the number of cannabis retailers near adolescents’ homes and the strength of local retail and pricing regulations are independently associated with teen cannabis use,” Young-Wolff said. The study could not determine whether retail bans, stronger local regulations or fewer nearby stores had different effects on heavy cannabis use.The study used Getting it Right from the Start’s California Local Cannabis Scorecards to assess the strength of local cannabis retail regulations. Parents, community members and local officials can use the scorecards to see how their communities measure up and identify gaps in protections.  Read More