Substate variation in US Cannabis policy: Local opt-outs and drive times to legal retailers.

BACKGROUND

In most U.S. states with legalized adult-use cannabis (AUC) sales, local jurisdictions can prohibit retail dispensaries within their borders ("opt-out" policies). Yet analyses quantifying AUC legalization's effects typically focus on binary state policy indicators, ignoring local opt-out policies' potential effects on retailer locations and the consequences thereof.

METHODS

Compiling novel data on local opt-out ordinances and dispensary locations across five states-California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Washington-we matched these to U.S. Census population counts to estimate the share of each state's population residing in opted-out jurisdictions. Using geospatial methods to assess drive times from jurisdiction centroids to the nearest dispensary, ordinary least squares regressions then estimate associations between opt-out status and drive times to the nearest dispensary within each state, adjusting for geographic and transportation covariates.

RESULTS

Opt-out coverage varied substantially across states, ranging from 1.5% of the population in New York to about 55% in New Jersey. Opt-out laws were associated with longer drive times in California (+5.5 min; 20% of that state's average minimum drive time to a legal dispensary) and Washington (+8.9 min; 42% of that state's average minimum drive time), where county-level opt-outs policies and geography limited opportunities for retailers to locate just outside of opted-out jurisdictions. Adjusted associations were largely non-significant in Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.

CONCLUSIONS

Both the degree to which localities opt-out of retail AUC sales and those policies' relationship with drive time to the nearest cannabis dispensaries vary across states. Critically, this variation is not explained by the percent of the population covered by opt-out policies but appears more common where opt-outs create genuine geographic barriers to retailer entry along the borders of opted out jurisdictions. Findings underscore the potential for mismeasurement in evaluations of cannabis legalization that rely on binary state-level exposures and highlight the need for more careful consideration of local policies' effects.