Senior scientist William C. Kerr and colleagues’ new grant investigates the effects of recreational legalization of marijuana and local policy implementation in Washington State. This project will provide a wealth of new information relevant to the impacts of legalization and local marijuana regulation, as well as inter-relationships between marijuana and other substance use problems over time.
William C. Kerr, PhD
The grant is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Previously, ARG was funded by NIAAA to conduct a series of six cross-sectional representative surveys of Washington in 2014, 2015 and 2016 with longitudinal follow-ups of selected respondents.
While the focus of these surveys was alcohol use and purchasing in relation to the privatization of the state liquor monopoly, a section on marijuana use behaviors, purchasing, attitudes, and problems was also included.
Our new project will utilize these surveys to investigate effects of recreational legalization and local policy implementation, linking data on marijuana store locations and other area measures at the time of each survey with respondent addresses and ZIP-codes.
ARG team members include scientists Thomas K. Greenfield and Katherine Karriker-Jaffe, biostatisticians Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman and Libo Li, along with research associates Deidre Patterson and Edwina Williams.
