Cannabis Law Report | Where to buy Skittles Moonrock online

In the United States, recreational cannabis has been legalized in more than twenty states over the past decade. Non-combustion methods of administration, such as edibles, are gaining popularity and market share. Estimates based on 2020 data show that 60.8% past-year cannabis consumers ingested edibles in the last year in states where recreational cannabis is legalized. 19.5% of recreational cannabis users and 23.8% medical cannabis users reported ingestion as their main method of cannabis consumption. In 2022, cannabis-infused edibles accounted for 12.1% of the legal cannabis market in the United States. Headset, 2022: Survey data shows that edible use is significantly more prevalent in states that have legalized medical and/or recreation cannabis compared to those that do not. They also show that states with longer legal cannabis markets, as well as states with a higher dispensary density, are associated with a higher prevalence of edible usage. (Borodovsky et al. 2022; Hammond, Crosier & Lee, 2016) Regulation of cannabis edibles on legal markets is an important way for policymakers to reduce harms associated problem cannabis use.

Cannabis edibles pose unique health risks, and raise public health concerns, compared to other cannabis-based products. This creates new challenges for policymakers. Their psychoactive effects are delayed and last longer, and they can be unpredictable due to their inconsistent potency. Cannabis edibles are therefore associated with increased risks of overdose. (Barrus et. al., 2016). Data from healthcare visits suggests that cannabis edibles are involved in the majority of cases of acute cannabis consumption. (Barrus et. al., 2016; Monte and al., 2019). Cannabis edible packages are often designed to appeal to youth. According to studies, 10-15% of cannabis edible packages mimicked food brands popular with youths. Around 20% of recreational cannabis dispensaries sold products that appealed to youths. The majority were edibles. In recent years, the number of youths who have accidentally consumed cannabis has increased, especially in states that have legalized medical or recreational cannabis. These cases mainly involve cannabis edibles. (Chiu, Leung, Hall, Stjepanovic & Degenhardt, 2021; Monte et al., 2019; Vo et al., 2018)

Cannabis edible packaging regulations can mitigate many of the concerns raised above, including those that regulate package style, health claims and potency labels. In tobacco control, a significant amount of research has shown that plain or standard package designs and the implementation of comprehensive health warnings can have a positive impact on health. These messages usually include large warning sizes, prominent positioning, graphics highlighting risks, and rotating text. (Buckell & Sindelar 2019; Cunningham 2022; Hammond 2011; Moodie et. al. 2022; Shang et. al. 2020) Literature regarding food packaging suggests that nutritional labels placed on the front of packages can improve nutritional knowledge and health outcomes. (Crosetto, Lacroix, Muller & Ruffieux, 2020; Temple, 2020)

The packaging laws for cannabis edibles vary widely across the states that have legalized recreational cannabis in the U.S. They are also not enforced very effectively. Only half of the states that have legalized recreational cannabis have specific regulations for cannabis edibles. (Goundar Macaulay & Szafron 2021) All states with specific regulations for edibles prohibit edible packaging that appeals to youths. The prohibitions range from vague restrictions on any youth-appealing feature to banning specific features like cartoon characters, real or fiction humans, bright colors, bubble fonts, etc. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other states have regulations that require packaging for cannabis products to be standardized in color. These requirements are less comprehensive that Canada’s, where graphics, images, branding elements and multiple colors are prohibited.

Some states prohibit all dietary and health claims made on cannabis packaging. (Goundar, et al. 2021) Despite the prohibitions, unsubstantiated claims about pain, anxiety, sleep and sleeplessness, not evaluated by FDA or supported by enough scientific evidence, have been found on cannabis product packaging, including edibles. (Barrus, et. al., 2016; Hoeper, et. al. 2022) Online descriptions of products also make many unsubstantiated claims, with insomnia and pain relief being the two most common claims. (Hoeper et al., 2022)

All states require that the potency of cannabis products be labeled in milligrams or percentages, depending on the type. They also limit the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol allowed per serving and package for edibles. This information is usually found in small print on a non-visible area of the package. This could limit their effectiveness. Researchers have identified unit dose packaging as an effective policy to increase consumer knowledge about edible portion sizes. In nutritional labeling literature, consumer-friendly visual indicators on the front of packaging that summarize nutritional data in large fonts or easily recognizable icons have been suggested to be effective. Temple, 2020) However no studies have been conducted to examine their effectiveness in cannabis management.

Almost all states use composite warning messages that combine multiple themes. There are no restrictions on the position of warning labels. New York State, however, is an exception. It requires three rotating messages with a single theme, but none are related to edibles. Only a few states have additional warnings that warn about the delayed onset or prolonged psychoactive effects from edibles. WHO recommends and requires FDA to use rotating short messages with a single theme.

Studies evaluating the impact of cannabis packaging are rare and only recently available. The lack of high-quality data that can be used to link individual outcomes with exposure to packaging and policies is a major challenge. There are also concerns about the endogeneity between self-reported outcomes and exposure, which complicates the analysis. Most existing studies have used between-individual experimentation, where participants were randomly assigned to view different packages. They then self-reported their ratings or perceptions. Some of these studies analyzed real-world cannabis packaging policies, such as Canadian plain packaging and Canadian versus U.S. health warnings. (Goodman & Hammond 2020; Goodman Leos Toro & Hammond 2019, 2021) A second strand of literature developed hypothetical packaging with different brand personalities and novel health warnings that were not implemented by any government, such as graphic warnings. (Kowitt et al., 2022; Leos-Toro, Fong & Hammond, 2021; Mutti-Packer, Collyer & Hodgins, 2018)

This study aims at estimating the impacts of packaging attributes for cannabis edibles on individual preferences and exploring heterogeneities by cannabis use status and usage purposes. We used a discrete-choice experiment (DCE), a method of experimental research commonly used in tobacco and health economics. (Regmi et al., 2018; Soekhai et al., de Bekker Grob, Ellis & Vass 2019) The hypothetical nature allows us to evaluate potentially efficient packages that aren’t available in U.S. market, such as the simple package required by Canada. In contrast to other experimental studies on cannabis packaging, which asked participants to express their opinions using Likert scales or subjective descriptions, our DCE research asked participants choose from package options with systematic variations in package characteristics. This DCE method has several advantages. The outcome measure for selecting a hypothetical product in a DCE has a stronger correlation with real purchase and substance usage behaviors. DCEs do not only assess between-individual variation, but also within-individual variation. This allows for stronger causal inferences. Our DCE included packages with multiple packaging attributes. These included package style, health claims, potency indicators, warning label positions, and warning labels text. We were able, therefore, to evaluate multiple packaging attributes in one experiment and quantify the relative importance and independent impacts of multiple attributes. We also conducted subgroup analyses to explore heterogeneities. Because different subpopulations with different cannabis use statuses and purposes may respond differently to packages and have different policy implications.

Our study is also unique in that it focuses on cannabis package attributes. The few DCEs published on cannabis products focused on products other edibles (e.g. flowers) and on instrumental characteristics of the products, such as price and potency, rather than packaging attributes. (Donnan, Johnston & Coombs, Najafizada & Bishop, 2023 ; Donnan, Johnston & Najafizada & Bishop, 2023 ; Shi, Cao, Shang & Pacula, 2019) While these instrumental attributes play a role in consumer choice, policymakers are required to regulate cannabis packaging, regardless of price or potency. Directional effects of package attributes, even if they are small, are important It may be unrealistic to expect that consumers will pay a lot for package attributes without any variation in product characteristics. Recent DCEs published in public health often omit the price as a variable attribute. (Barrientos-Gutierrez et al., 2020; Hoek et al., 2022; Lee et al., 2021) Our study is also the first to examine the impacts of youth-appealing package features. We built on the body of experimental work done previously on cannabis packages to develop novel experimental stimuli. Most notably, the hypothetical branded packaging with a youth-appealing counterpart.

Our study will provide policymakers with important information about consumer preferences regarding cannabis packaging. Policymakers can use this information to create regulations that affect package attributes. If the goal of policy is to reduce cannabis consumption, they could mandate that packages only use the least-preferred versions of the most important attributes from our study. If the policy goal is to increase health knowledge without having a significant impact on consumer choices, they can target package attributes that have the least impact. Our analysis can be used to support a range of policy goals for cannabis control.

Participants

In August and September 2022, Qualtrics – a company that provides recruitment services and online survey platforms – recruited 1578 participants through online panels. The inclusion criteria is adults 18 years and older who live in one of 18 states plus Washington, D.C. where recreational cannabis was legalized at the time data collection. The 18 states include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New

Discussion

Our analysis of preferences for cannabis edible packaging attributes yields several interesting results that have policy implications. Package style is the most significant attribute with an estimated relative significance of 33.2-50.8% in subsamples. This is because the package style attribute has the most drastic visual differences and was therefore the most noticeable attribute during choice scenarios. All subsamples preferred the branded package

Conclusion

This is the first study to use a DCE method to assess individual preferences for packaging of cannabis edible products. Our results show that cannabis users and nonusers alike prefer branded packaging over highly regulated plain packaging, and that cannabis consumers prefer youth-appealing packaging to branded packaged. Both cannabis users, and nonusers, place a high value on health claims. They prefer packages that make any health claim to packages without one.

Ethics approval

The authors declare that they have obtained ethics approval from an appropriately constituted ethics committee/institutional review board where the research entailed animal or human participation.

The Human Research Protections Program of the University of California San Diego has approved this study (protocol no. 200684).

The authors declare that their work does not require ethics approval as it does not involve animal or humans participation.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Michael Cooper: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Validation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Yuyan Shi: Writing – review and editing, Resources, Project Administration, Methodology. Funding acquisition. Formal analysis. Data curation.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests or personal relations that could have appeared as influencing the work reported in this article.

Funding sources

This research was funded by grants #R01DA049730 and #65216 from U.S. California Department of Cannabis Control. (PI: shi). This article is solely the responsibility of the authors, and does not represent the views of either the National Institute on Drug Abuse nor the California Department of Cannabis Control. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the California Department of Cannabis Control play no role in the collection of data or analysis.