Cannabis and alcohol enforcement strategies across the U.S.

Objective: As the legalization of adult-use cannabis has expanded to include almost half of the states in the U.S., substance use-related enforcement responsibilities for state and local law enforcement agencies may have changed. We assessed the use of cannabis and alcohol enforcement strategies at local and state levels, and in legal and non-legal cannabis states.

Method: We conducted surveys of 1,024 local law enforcement agencies, 53 state alcohol beverage control agencies and 48 state patrol agencies. We calculated the prevalence of cannabis enforcement strategies and their analogous alcohol strategies and analyzed differences across legal and non-legal cannabis states. We assessed associations between cannabis enforcement strategies, cannabis legalization status, and agency and jurisdiction characteristics.

Results: Cannabis enforcement strategies were less common than their analogous alcohol strategies. The percentage of agencies conducting enforcement of cannabis-impaired driving and of public use of cannabis did not differ significantly across agencies in legal and non-legal states. Agencies in cannabis legal states (compared to non-legal states) were more likely to train officers in identifying cannabis impairment among drivers (RR=1.23, 95% CI=1.08-1.42). Several local agency and jurisdiction characteristics were associated with a higher likelihood of conducting cannabis enforcement but results were inconsistent across strategies.

Conclusions: Our study shows that cannabis enforcement strategies were used less than analogous alcohol strategies in legal and non-legal jurisdictions, suggesting that increased cannabis enforcement could lead to reductions in public health harms. This study provides a foundation for much needed research on cannabis and alcohol enforcement during a changing cannabis legalization landscape.