The potential COVID-19 impact on food production and food industry is illustrated in Fig 3. For agriculture, the pandemic impacted both supply and demand for food . Canadian poultry and dairy sectors have been hit hard by the pandemic . For meat, the FAO Meat Price Index indicated that international meat prices dropped in May 2020 by 16 points from January 2020 . The ovine meat registered the largest price drop , followed by poultry meat , pig meat , and bovine meat .This study examines the relationship between MCD density and crime rates in San Francisco neighborhoods, based on the locations of the 26 MCDs operating with city permits in the year 2010. In San Francisco, MCDs must comply with certain requirements as to their location and operation, and must undergo a local permitting process before opening their doors to the public. These requirements include security measures meant to reduce crime.Thus San Francisco presents an important manifestation of this study’s primary independent variable,how to dry cannabis which is not medical cannabis perse but the set of policies governing medical cannabis dispensaries. San Francisco presents an opportunity to test the effect of locally regulated MCDs on crime in surrounding neighborhoods.
San Francisco is not the only city in California to issue permits to MCDs, nor is it necessarily unique in doing so—the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Actis similar in language and purpose to Berkeley’s Patients Access to Medical Cannabis Actand several other ordinances throughout the state. But among the jurisdictions that have enacted local ordinances regulating MCDs, San Francisco is in a fairly unique position. It contains a large number of dispensaries—but not too large a number. It can be said with a high level of certainty that there were 26 dispensaries operating in San Francisco in 2010.9 Cities with larger numbers of dispensaries do not offer this certainty. Los Angeles provides an excellent example. At one point there were an estimated 1,000 MCDs operating in Los Angeles, leading one observer to claim that medical cannabis was more popular than Starbucks.10 To analyze the relationship between dispensaries and crime in Los Angeles would require a substantial amount of field research in order to determine exactly how many dispensaries were open when, and where. At the other end of the spectrum are cities like Berkeley, which imposed a hard limit on the number of MCDs permitted within its jurisdiction. 11 Such a case would provide a high level of certainty, but at the cost of relevance: there are too few dispensaries in those jurisdictions to merit meaningful statistical analysis. Berkeley’s dispensaries are similar to San Francisco’s in many ways, but there were only three of them operating in 2010—making it difficult to conduct a meaningful analysis of MCD density and local crime rates in Berkeley.
San Francisco may not be the only case worthy of study, but given the limitations faced by this type of research, it is a particularly compelling one.This study uses crime data obtained from the San Francisco Police Department . 12 A formal request was made under the California Public Records Act for lists of serious crimes at the citywide level for the year 2010 including date, category of crime, and location by city block. Lists were also compiled of the addresses of all MCDs operating in the city in 2010, using data from the Public Health Department. Borrowing from a research design presented by Williams, Freisthler, and Sims , all data were aggregated to census tract boundaries. Census tracts are convenient units of analysis because they have fairly consistent populations and their boundaries tend to align with the physical environment.13 Regression analyses are conducted to test the relationship between MCD density and crime rate, controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage, family disruption, and residential instability. Findings indicate a weak but statistically significant relationship between MCD density and crime. It appears that, in San Francisco, neighborhoods containing MCDs have slightly higher rates of crime than neighborhoods that do not contain MCDs. Due to the limited number of cases—26 dispensaries across 16 census tracts, compared to 173 non-MCD-containing tracts—I am cautious about speculating as to the causal nature of this link. Stronger links are found between crime and some of the other variables examined by this study, which are derived from the criminological literature on social disorganization theory.
According to social disorganization theory as put forward by Sampson and Groves , high crime rates can be explained by the presence of certain “exogenous sources of social disorganization” including socioeconomic disadvantage, family disruption, and residential instability. Measures of each of these concepts are significantly associated with crime, and with much greater explanatory power than is found for MCD density. Thus, these findings cast doubt on the claim that MCDs are magnets for criminal activity. In chapter II, I review the existing literature on cannabis, MCDs, and crime. Routine activities theory provides a useful lens through which to analyze competing claims about the potentially criminogenic effects of certain land uses , while social disorganization theory helps identify variables that may confound such a relationship. In chapter III, I present a conceptual model for explaining the relationship between crime, MCDs, and selected “exogenous sources of social disorganization”. The research design employed by this study is described in greater detail in chapter IV, along with a presentation of results. In Chapter V, I discuss important findings as well as limitations faced by the present study, and conclude by providing some direction for future research.The State of California has recognized cannabis as a legitimate medical treatment since 1996. In this paper I argue that the important policy question, then, is not whether but how to allow for the drug’s distribution. One model of distribution that has proliferated in recent years is the medical cannabis dispensary . In the political arena, proponents and critics of MCDs have made antithetical claims about the relationship between MCDs and crime. Proponents claim that MCDs decrease crime, while critics allege that they are magnets for criminal activity . In this paper I explore these competing claims and their empirical implications, which have received little attention to date from the academic community. Specifically, this study explores the spatial relationship between MCDs and crime in San Francisco. In this chapter I review the relevant literature on cannabis and crime. I first discuss the potential links between drug use and crime—which seems especially weak with respect to cannabis, compared to alcohol and other drugs . Then I discuss the potential links between MCDs, as a land use, and nearby crime. In the third section I present an ecological framework known as routine activities theory, which attempts to explain crime based on the circumstances in which it occurs. Specifically, routine activities theory states that three convergent factors are required in order for a direct-contact predatory crime to occur: motivated offenders, suitable targets, and lack of capable guardianship . In the fourth and final section of this chapter I discuss social disorganization theory,best way to dry cannabis which attempts to explain the relationship between crime and certain neighborhood characteristics. Building on the work of urban sociologists Henry Shaw and Clifford McKay, social disorganization theorists have identified economic deprivation, residential instability, population heterogeneity, and family disruption as categories of neighborhood characteristics that explain crime and delinquency .
I incorporate these insights into the model of urban crime that I develop and test in subsequent chapters.In the next two sections I aim to clarify the important distinction that exists between cannabis and medical cannabis dispensaries , and how these different concepts might affect crime. This paper is concerned with the latter. In the empirical analysis that I present in the following chapters, the key independent variable under review is not a drug per se but a land use that distributes a drug to certain qualified individuals. The present study is not designed to address the relationship between cannabis, as a substance, and criminal behavior—a question that would require controlled behavioral experiments or field research. Instead, I explore the criminological impact of MCDs as retail businesses that operate in complex urban environments. The policy question is therefore one of land use, not substance control per se. Nonetheless, it is possible that MCDs could have an indirect effect on neighborhood crime rates via the underlying effects of cannabis , if the latter were independently associated with criminal behavior. Toward that end, I review in this section the relevant literature on drug use and crime. The alleged link between cannabis and socially undesirable behavior dates almost as far as back any other mention of the drug in United States history. In fact, a compelling argument can be made that modern cannabis prohibition has its roots in the historical perception, fueled by racist and xenophobic stereotypes of Mexican immigrants, that use of the drug led to violent criminal behavior. In 1914, an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times linking a mysterious plant with Mexican immigrants and “many revolting crimes.”Years later, a Montana lawmaker would say of the drug: “When some beet field peon takes a few rares of this stuff, he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.”These stories from the west were relayed nationally by outlets like the New York Times, who quickly caught on to the stereotype of the violent, marijuana-fueled Mexican criminal. One piece in 1925 ran with the headline, “Mexican, Crazed by Marijuana, Runs Amuck With Butcher Knife.” It went on to describe the violent slaying of six hospital patients by a veteran of the Mexican Army, who was allegedly intoxicated at the time of the murders.When the United States Congress first discussed a proposal to prohibit the drug federally in 1937, its members likely had these violent images in mind. Fast forward to present day. The link between marijuana and violent criminal behavior has been challenged by research in economics and criminology. In 2000 the economist Andrew Resignato reviewed existing drugs-crime research and concluded that—despite the assumption made by national drug control policies that there is a clear and causal relationship between drugs and crime—greater evidence may actually exist to suggest a link between “drug enforcement/control/prohibition” and crime. Benson and others have also found that drug enforcement policies can affect crime rates, independently of actual drug use . These findings highlight a core challenge faced by drug policy researchers. It is impossible, in most cases, to study the social consequences of a drug without considering, at the same time, the legal status of that drug and what conditions that might impose on users of the drug. Much of the relevant drugs-crime literature employs a tripartite theoretical framework put forward by Goldstein . Goldstein identified three mechanisms through which drugs might contribute to criminal behavior: psychopharmacological factors, economic compulsion, and systemic violence. “Psychopharmacological risk” of criminal behavior refers to the possibility that the psychoactive components of a drug might make a user more likely to engage in criminal behavior, strictly in terms of his or her neurobiology. “Economic compulsion” refers to the process by which drug users might engage in criminal activity in order to fund their potentially expensive drug habits. “Systemic violence” occurs when drug markets are enmeshed in broader networks of crime and violence, in which drug users become involved . Regarding psychopharmacological links to crime, Pacula and Kilmer report a positive association between marijuana use and reports of nonviolent crime, but no causal link between marijuana use and violent crime. They conclude that marijuana use might play a greater role in a criminal getting caught than in the original decision to commit the crime. Indeed, a large number of arrestees test positive for cannabis in the United States . But correlation does not mean causation. Several explanations exist for the high rate of marijuana use among criminal offenders that do not point to a causal link between the drug and criminal behavior. First, there is the simple observation that cannabis use is very prevalent in the United States. In 2010 an estimated 22.6 million Americans above the age of 12 were “current users” of illicit drugs; of these, 17.4 million—or 6.9% of the population —were current users of marijuana . Given these high rates of use, one would expect significant portions of any sample of Americans to test positive for marijuana.