Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0628, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2024 Sep 4;24(1):2397. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-19640-1.
In U.S. states that legalized and commercialized recreational cannabis, cannabis sales in illegal markets are still sizable or even larger than those in legal markets. This study aimed to assess cannabis consumers' preferences for purchasing cannabis from legal and illegal markets and estimate the trade-offs under various policy scenarios.
963 adults were recruited, who used cannabis in the past year and lived in a state with recreational cannabis legalization. In a discrete choice experiment, participants chose purchasing cannabis from a legal dispensary or an illegal dealer with varying levels in product attributes including quality, safety, accessibility, potency, and price. Mixed logit models were used to analyze preferences.
The likelihood of choosing legal cannabis increased with a higher quality, the presence of lab test, a shorter distance to seller, a higher tetrahydrocannabinol level, and a lower price. The likelihood of choosing illegal cannabis increased with a higher quality, a shorter distance to seller, and a lower price. Among product attributes, quality and accessibility were perceived to be the most important for legal cannabis and price was perceived to be the most important for illegal cannabis. Policy simulations predicted that improving quality, ensuring safety, allowing delivery services, increasing dispensary density, and lowering prices/taxes of legal cannabis may reduce illegal cannabis market share.
In the U.S., cannabis consumers' preferences for illegal cannabis were associated with both legal and illegal cannabis product attributes. Policies regulating legal cannabis markets should consider potential spillover effects to illegal markets.
在美国，娱乐用大麻合法化和商业化的州，非法市场的大麻销售仍然相当大，甚至大于合法市场。本研究旨在评估大麻消费者对从合法和非法市场购买大麻的偏好，并在各种政策情景下估计这些偏好的权衡取舍。
招募了 963 名成年人，他们在过去一年中使用过大麻，并且居住在娱乐用大麻合法化的州。在一项离散选择实验中，参与者选择从合法的药房或非法经销商处购买大麻，这些大麻在产品属性方面存在差异，包括质量、安全性、可及性、效力和价格。使用混合对数模型分析偏好。
选择合法大麻的可能性随着质量的提高、存在实验室测试、距离卖家更近、四氢大麻酚水平更高以及价格更低而增加。选择非法大麻的可能性随着质量更高、距离卖家更近以及价格更低而增加。在产品属性中，质量和可及性被认为对合法大麻最重要，而价格被认为对非法大麻最重要。政策模拟预测，提高质量、确保安全、允许送货服务、增加药房密度和降低合法大麻的价格/税收可能会降低非法大麻的市场份额。
在美国，大麻消费者对非法大麻的偏好与合法和非法大麻产品属性都有关。监管合法大麻市场的政策应考虑到对非法市场的潜在溢出效应。
