Using wastewater‐based analysis to monitor the effects of legalized retail sales on cannabis consumption in Washington State, USA

Burgard, Daniel A.; Williams, Jason; Westerman, Danielle C.; Rushing, Rosie; Carpenter, R. S.; LaRock, Addison; Sadetsky, Jane; Clarke, J S; Fryhle, Heather; Pellman, Melissa; Banta‐Green, Caleb J.

doi:10.1111/add.14641

Cited by 39 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Studies of the Washington market have found increased use over time after adult use legalization. A study utilizing analyses of raw wastewater sample from 2014 to 2016 found evidence of increasing use in 2016, consistent with survey results (Burgard et al 2019 ). A study utilizing the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey for Washington found increased use and frequent use after legalization to be associated with access to retail stores, rather than legalization or store opening generally (Everson et al 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Characteristics of the Washington cannabis market from 2014 to 2016

Kerr

2022

J Cannabis Res

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Background The state of Washington legalized cannabis for adult use in 2012 and retail stores began to open in 2014. While details of the legal market have been tracked by the state, the total market for cannabis and characteristics of purchasers can only be identified through surveys. Methods Six cross-sectional samples of the Privatization of Spirits in Washington (PSW) surveys were collected between January 2014 and October 2016 with two in each year. Random digit dial procedures were used to recruit a sample aged 18 and older, with 40% of cases from mobile phones. A total of 5492 respondents participated. Analyses of the population-weighted sample utilized purchasing amounts and frequencies, use frequency and related measures to estimate total and mean amounts and expenditures. Sensitivity analyses were conducted for key assumptions. Results The market for cannabis flower is estimated to have increased from 158 metric tons and $1.23 billion in 2014 to 222 metric tons and $1.7 billion in 2016, with little change from 2014 to 2015. Purchases from legal sources, retail and dispensaries, were estimated at 69% of the total market. Daily or near daily (DND) users accounted for about 83% of sales in 2014, rising to 91% in 2016. The prevalence of past year use rose substantially from 25% in 2014 to 32% in 2016, with DND use rising from 10.2 to 11.3%. Average purchase amounts for DND users rose from 291 g in 2014 to 374 g in 2016, while mean amounts among non-DND users declined from 78 to 28.6 g. Conclusions The expansion of retail cannabis stores in Washington appears to have led to increased market size in 2016 with all of the increase attributed to DND users. Frequent users may be important to consider in legalization evaluations.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Characteristics of the Washington cannabis market from 2014 to 2016

Kerr

2022

J Cannabis Res

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“…Additionally, population surveys are expensive and complex to perform ( Hernández et al, 2018 ). The benefits of WBE resulted in the publication of studies in many countries of the world ( Archer et al, 2018 ; Bannwarth et al, 2019 ; Banta-Green et al, 2016 ; Bartelt-Hunt et al, 2009 ; Baz-Lomba et al, 2016 ; Benaglia et al, 2020 ; Boleda et al, 2009 ; Burgard et al, 2019 ; Foppe et al, 2018 ; Kankaanpää et al, 2016 ; Mackulˇak et al, 2014 ; Maldaner et al, 2012 ; Metcalfe et al, 2010 ; van Nuijs et al, 2009b ; Zhang et al, 2019 ; Zuccato et al, 2008 ). In fact, since 2011, the Europe-wide network (Sewage analysis CORe Group Europe (SCORE)) performs the systematic monitoring of consumption biomarkers of four priority drugs (cocaine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), amphetamine, and methamphetamine) in WWTPs, covering 68 cities from 23 European countries in 2019 ( EMCDDA, 2020 ).…”

Section: Wastewater-based Epidemiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Illicit Drug Consumption by Wastewater Analysis Using Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler as a Monitoring Tool

2021

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Illicit drug abuse is a worldwide social and health problem, and monitoring illicit drug use is of paramount importance in the context of public policies. It is already known that relevant epidemiologic information can be obtained from the analysis of urban residual waters. This approach, named wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), is based on the measurement of specific markers, resulting from human biotransformation of the target drugs, as indicators of the consumption of the compounds by the population served by the wastewater treatment installation under investigation. Drug consumption estimation based on WBE requires sewage sampling strategies that express the concentrations along the whole time period of time. To this end, the most common approach is the use of automatic composite samplers. However, this active sampling procedure is costly, especially for long-term studies and in limited-resources settings. An alternative, cost-effective, sampling strategy is the use of passive samplers, like the polar organic chemical integrative sampler (POCIS). POCIS sampling has already been applied to the estimation of exposure to pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and some drugs of abuse, and some studies evaluated the comparative performances of POCIS and automatic composite samplers. In this context, this manuscript aims to review the most important biomarkers of drugs of abuse consumption in wastewater, the fundamentals of POCIS sampling in WBE, the previous application of POCIS for WBE of drugs of abuse, and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of POCIS sampling, in comparison with other strategies used in WBE. POCIS sampling is an effective strategy to obtain a representative overview of biomarker concentrations in sewage over time, with a small number of analyzed samples, increased detection limits, with lower costs than active sampling. Just a few studies applied POCIS sampling for WBE of drugs of abuse, but the available data support the use of POCIS as a valuable tool for the long-term monitoring of the consumption of certain drugs within a defined population, particularly in limited-resources settings.

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“…Specifically, if an increase was observed WBE cannot distinguish between the following possibilities i) more individuals are consuming at the same rate, ii) slightly more individuals consuming and at a higher rate each, iii) the same number of individuals consuming a higher total amount each, or iv) one group of individuals in the cohort consuming more than another group. Nevertheless, wastewater samples can be analyzed retrospectively to provide aggregated consumption estimates (Boogaerts et al, 2016;Burgard et al, 2019;Mackie et al, 2019) with easily adjusted spatio-temporal frequencies and short time-lags in gathering and reporting data. While specific socio-demographic features of individuals might not easily be obtained, WBE can provide a spatial comparison between different populations with different socio-economic status at a community level (P. Choi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%