Intervening to Prevent Youth Access to Marijuana Phase II

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State
is the most dramatic change in U.S. substance abuse policy since the end of Prohibition.
These states are implementing regulatory and enforcement systems for the retail sales of
recreational marijuana to adults 21 years or older, akin to state controls on the sale of
alcohol. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued directives that it would
monitor whether these states implemented strong and effective regulatory and enforcement
systems that among other DOJ priorities, prevented distribution of marijuana to youth. A
retail sales intervention that has been effective at reducing illegal alcohol sales to minors
(and intoxicated patrons) is alcoholic beverage server training (or responsible beverage
service training). Recently, Colorado enacted a law for incentivized responsible marijuana
vendor training, Oregon will require responsible marijuana vendor training, and Washington
State may incentivize it. In this study, we propose to 1) produce the TrainToTend online
responsible marijuana vendor training presenting retail marijuana sales laws, methods for
checking IDs and preventing third party sales, the health effects of marijuana (e.g., fetal
exposure; safe storage), customer service (e.g., driving under the influence; refusing sales
to minors), and rules of the trade (e.g., inventory tracking and safety procedures) and 2)
conduct a randomized trial on the TrainToTend training with a sample of retail recreational
marijuana stores in Colorado, Oregon and Washington State (n=150) that are randomly assigned
to have their employees complete the TrainToTend training (experimental group) or receive
usual and customary sales training by store managers (no intervention control group). The
effect of the TrainToTend training on responsible sales practices will be assessed by changes
in recreational marijuana purchase attempts by pseudo-underage patrons (i.e., young-appearing
customers without apparently valid IDs) at each store measured at 3-month follow-up and
9-month follow-up relative to baseline.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. being 21 or older,

2. owning a retail marijuana outlet or being employed as a manager or budtender at a
retail marijuana outlet,

3. have a smart phone, tablet computer or personal computer with Internet access, and

4. consenting to participate

Exclusion Criteria:

1. a family or household member is already participating,

2. they are not proficient in English, or

3. they participated in the SBIR Phase I research