Community-level policy responses to state marijuana legalization in Washington State
Section snippets
Background
Washington State was one of the first two states in the United States (U.S.) to legalize a retail non-medical (also called “recreational”) marijuana market, including growing, processing and sales, and decriminalization of individual possession of small amounts of product, through voter initiative 502 (I-502) in November 2012. Possession or use by individuals under age 21, or by adults in amounts greater than specified by the law, driving under the influence of marijuana, home growing for
Methods
A framework for assessing the content of local ordinances (“policy surveillance”) was developed based on an initial marijuana policy coding project that was funded in Washington State by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Research Program (informed by public health interventions for alcohol and tobacco), review of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Alcohol Policy Information System (NIAAA APIS, 2016), and based on knowledge of ordinances passed or under
Results
A total of 125 cities and 30 counties had passed ordinances that addressed marijuana. A summary of the numbers of policies in effect on June 30, 2016, by city or county entity, and the estimated percent of the total population covered by each policy are presented in Table 2. None of the county policies identified in our study during this period were passed with powers of public health authority; all county policies reported in this study were related to land use and business licensing and
Discussion
Most communities in Washington State have acted to regulate recreational marijuana retail sales by municipal or county ordinance following statewide legalization, resulting in a relatively diverse set of policies at the community level within the state. Only 17 cities in our study and 9 counties, encompassing 4% of the population, did not take some form of local policy action.
Continued shifts and developments in state regulatory systems and state law may have influenced local governments to
Conclusions
Two years after the opening of a “legalized marijuana market” in Washington State, community-level regulations on recreational marijuana retail sales vary substantially. About one-third of the state’s residents live in communities where recreational marijuana sales are prohibited, and most communities that allow sales have implemented some restrictions on operations. Further study is needed to understand how such local policies affect variation in public health and social outcomes.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Project #1R01DA039293-01A1. Study tools were originally developed by a project funded by Public Health Law Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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2022, International Journal of Drug PolicyCitation Excerpt :A similar inefficient allocation effect could arise from differences in local taxation. Relatedly, local ordinance passed in some states creates intra-state licensing heterogeneity, as municipalities opt-out of hosting licensed businesses (Dilley et al., 2017). This can make licensing more restrictive than the state-level picture suggests: for example, in California local-level opt-outs have been blamed for a persistent illicit market (Nieves, 2021), which carries negative implications for public health (Unger et al., 2020).