{"title":"Measuring State Cannabis Policy Design Variation for Research and Policy: A Bundles Approach.","authors":"Daniel J Mallinson, Lilliard E Richardson","doi":"10.1016/j.clinthera.2025.07.027","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For understanding how cannabis legalization in the American states has affected public health, it is important to consider how policies vary by state. This commentary presents a policy bundles approach to measuring state cannabis policy variation. Measured from 1994 to 2023, three bundles-pharmaceutical, permissive, and fiscal-capture 36 different characteristics of state medical and recreational cannabis laws. The pharmaceutical bundle captures characteristics treating cannabis like a regulated pharmaceutical. The permissive bundle those that treat it like an easily accessed over-the-counter product. Finally, the fiscal bundle captures ways that states raise revenue from cannabis. Furthermore, measures are available capturing either policies as adopted or as implemented, allowing researchers to better link policy effects to actual implementation. The commentary demonstrates the bundle measures using the state of Massachusetts and concludes with future directions for using these publicly available measures for health research.</p>","PeriodicalId":10699,"journal":{"name":"Clinical therapeutics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Clinical therapeutics","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinthera.2025.07.027","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
For understanding how cannabis legalization in the American states has affected public health, it is important to consider how policies vary by state. This commentary presents a policy bundles approach to measuring state cannabis policy variation. Measured from 1994 to 2023, three bundles-pharmaceutical, permissive, and fiscal-capture 36 different characteristics of state medical and recreational cannabis laws. The pharmaceutical bundle captures characteristics treating cannabis like a regulated pharmaceutical. The permissive bundle those that treat it like an easily accessed over-the-counter product. Finally, the fiscal bundle captures ways that states raise revenue from cannabis. Furthermore, measures are available capturing either policies as adopted or as implemented, allowing researchers to better link policy effects to actual implementation. The commentary demonstrates the bundle measures using the state of Massachusetts and concludes with future directions for using these publicly available measures for health research.
期刊介绍:
Clinical Therapeutics provides peer-reviewed, rapid publication of recent developments in drug and other therapies as well as in diagnostics, pharmacoeconomics, health policy, treatment outcomes, and innovations in drug and biologics research. In addition Clinical Therapeutics features updates on specific topics collated by expert Topic Editors. Clinical Therapeutics is read by a large international audience of scientists and clinicians in a variety of research, academic, and clinical practice settings. Articles are indexed by all major biomedical abstracting databases.