Policy and Training Intervention in Responsible Marijuana Sales Practices to Reduce the Risk of Selling to Intoxicated Customers

About This Grant

Title: Policy and Training Intervention in Responsible Marijuana Sales Practices to Reduce the Risk of Selling to Intoxicated Customers Principal Investigators: Dr. Gill Woodall, PhD & Dr. David Buller, PhD Abstract: The new recreational cannabis markets are contributing to morbidity and mortality due to cannabis- and polysubstance-impaired driving and other harms by selling a social intoxicant (i.e., cannabis) to already intoxicated customers. In recreational cannabis markets, deterrence efforts to reduce impaired driving directed at drivers face challenges and an alternative approach is to decrease access to cannabis by alcohol- impaired customers. The specific aims of the parent project are to: 1) conduct pseudo-intoxicated patron (PiP) assessments at state-licensed recreational cannabis stores (n=173) in the greater Portland and Salem metropolitan areas (i.e., Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah, and Washington Counties) in Year 1; 2) implement a policy and training (PT) intervention in Year 2 designed to increase compliance with Oregon law prohibiting sale of recreational cannabis to obviously intoxicated customers with a group of stores (n=65) assigned at random, that intends to a) make owners/managers of stores aware of Oregon’s law prohibiting sales of cannabis to obviously intoxicated customers, b) increase their risk perception and motivation to comply, and c) train store personnel in skills to recognize signs of intoxication and refuse sales; 3) compare PT intervention stores to usual and customary policy and training (UC-PT) stores (n=108) in a randomized controlled trial by posttesting recreational cannabis stores in greater Portland and Salem with PiP assessments in Year 3; and 4) estimate impact of the PT intervention on refusal to PiPs by implementing the PT intervention with the remaining stores in Portland and Salem in Year 4 in a partial cross-over design and assessing state-licensed stores in greater Portland and Salem with the PiP protocol. Also, a sample of 39 alcohol premises were assessed that are co-located near the recreational cannabis premises to explore local area neighborhood effects on compliance with restrictions to sell to intoxicated customers. These analyses will determine if neighborhood effects are detected in concordance in compliance in alcohol premises and cannabis stores. The aim of this administrative supplement proposal is to add alcohol premises (n=50) to the parent project sample increasing the sample to n=89 alcohol premises to improve representativeness of the sample and increase statistical power and precision in the geospatial analyses examining neighborhood effects on compliance. The parent project research is innovative and high impact by testing one of the first interventions to prevent recreational cannabis sales to obviously intoxicated customers in one of the first states to ban such sales. It can be a model intervention for the 24 states that have legalized recreational cannabis. The planned geospatial analyses are innovative, being the first examination of neighborhood area effects on compliance with responsible sale regulations in both recreational cannabis and alcohol sales to intoxicated customers. Findings will inform regulators’ actions and have implications for policy, training, and enforcement to improve policy effectiveness in alcohol and recreational cannabis markets.