As early adopters of recreational marijuana legalization, these states set precedents for other states to follow suit, even though marijuana remained an illegal substance under federal law. In both Colorado and Washington, local governments could enact ordinances or regulations to limit the availability of local marijuana facilities, including prohibiting them altogether.Colorado and Washington serve as quasi-natural experiments to examine how local jurisdictions have responded to state marijuana legalization. By investigating local marijuana policy decisions, such as ordinances to prohibit marijuana facilities, we can identify key factors and themes that drove those policy choices. Understanding these can provide critical insight about local policy change processes that may be generalizable to localities elsewhere. Further, longitudinal monitoring and examination of local policy decisions around marijuana, including the policy stakeholders and arguments, can help identify patterns in how local jurisdictions are regulating emergent recreational marijuana markets and allow us to analyze whether and how local policy has shifted over time. Currently, there is a dearth of local marijuana policy surveillance research and a lack of investigation of how these policies have changed since legalization.Examining county-level policies can be of use because counties are administrative arms of state government—they assume key governance and service provision roles for businesses and residents in unincorporated areas, and they have expanded their policy making responsibilities over time in the area of health care.
County governments are also subject to local perspectives and needs,cannabis grow supplies providing an interesting political and policy context for health policy decision making. Prior research focusing on Washington 3 and California6 suggests there is large variation in the types of county-level marijuana policies adopted in states that have legalized recreational marijuana. As of July 2014, 10 of 39 Washington counties either adopted a permanent ban of retail recreational cannabis outlets or did not modify a moratorium that they had previously enacted.By mid-2016, Washington counties still had a permanent or temporary ban on cannabis retail sales , and approximately 30% of the state population lived in locations with permanent bans or moratoriums on retail sales—indicating considerable variation across cities and counties.In California, a study of marijuana laws in local jurisdictions enacted by January 31, 2019, reported that 62% of the state’s 58 counties allowed any retail sale of marijuana for either medical or adult recreational use.For several reasons, research is needed on current local recreational marijuana policy environments, stakeholders, and related communication to inform public health research, practice, and policy. First,although some work examining local policies in Washington and California has been undertaken, to our knowledge, similar policy surveillance research has not been conducted in Colorado. Analysis of both Washington and Colorado provides an opportunity to capture local policy evolution in states that were early adopters of marijuana legalization. This is important because relative to other jurisdictions that only recently legalized marijuana, Washington and Colorado afford several years of data to capture current local policies as well as the dynamics of policy change over time. Second, analysis of local policy allows greater granularity to identify important arguments about policy change, as well as tensions.
The calculus underlying local legalization of marijuana may vary, with possible public concerns about permitting marijuana facilities ranging from public health and safety issues to ideological arguments and local public opinion.Third, previous local marijuana policy surveillance studies did not investigate changes in policy over time or the policy stakeholders and actors involved in local policy making processes. Examining these components in a policy debate can reveal important dynamics about the policy making process and involvement of advocacy coalitions.Local stakeholders and audiences in Washington and Colorado have had more time than those in other states to weigh and debate the merits and concerns associated with various marijuana policies; therefore, the stakeholders and arguments at the local level in Washington and Colorado may anticipate policy trends and processes developing elsewhere. This study uses a mixed-methods research design to describe the types of county-level policies enacted in Colorado and Washington by 2019 to allow or restrict recreational marijuana facilities; identify key policy stakeholders/actors involved in county-level marijuana policy debates; and explore arguments used to support or oppose these policy positions.In both Washington and Colorado, legalization of marijuana was initiated by voters. In Washington, voters approved the Legalization and Regulation Initiative 502 legalizing the production, processing, and sale of marijuana for recreational purposes in November 2012. The initiative included certain restrictions, such as restricting possession and use by minors , setting quantity limits, and restricting public use. The Washington State Liquor Control Board became the primary regulatory body for licensing and oversight of the cannabis market.
It was tasked with regulating and issuing licenses for marijuana production, processing, and retail facilities. These licenses could be forfeited if a city, town, or county adopted a ban or moratorium prohibiting retail marijuana businesses or adopted an ordinance or regulation related to zoning, licensing, or land use, or a regulation to prevent receipt of an occupancy permit for the facility.New marijuana retail outlets could only sell marijuana products, and vertical integration with other types of retailers was not allowed. The board also limited the number of retail stores to a maximum of 334 statewide and used a formula to issue a maximum number of licenses per county based on population size. No limits were set for producer or processor licenses.In Colorado, voters approved a ballot referendum in November 2012 to enact a state constitutional amendment that legalized possession and consumption of marijuana among adults ; created an excise tax on wholesale marijuana with earmarked conditions; provided for licensing of marijuana establishments ; and required localities to enact an ordinance or regulation by October 1, 2013, to define the entity responsible for processing license applications. Localities could also prohibit any or all marijuana facilities within their boundaries with an ordinance or voter measure.Counties opting for a voter measure would have to do so after the licensing of facilities in 2014.At the state level, Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division was tasked with creating rules, regulations,cannabis grower supplies and licenses for the recreational marijuana marketplace. The resulting principles included a focus on the health, safety, and well-being of youth; consumer needs; efficient and effective regulation; funding mechanisms; balanced and non-duplicative regulation between state and local authorities; interactions and transactional relationships; and community safety.Washington and Colorado shared several marijuana policy and market environment characteristics in addition to their voter-initiated legalization approaches. First, these state policies were enacted while marijuana was illegal under federal law as a Schedule 1 drug under the US Controlled Substances Act—a source of tension in state legalization.Second, both states had already legalized medical marijuana use more than 10 years prior to legalizing recreational marijuana .Third, both states prohibited public use of marijuana in nearly all smoke-free spaces.Fourth, legalizing recreational marijuana ushered in a new potential source of revenue for state and local governments.However, the revenue models in Colorado and Washington are not the same. Unlike Colorado, local jurisdictions in Washington were not allowed to tax marijuana; instead, the state distributes revenue to local jurisdictions from the state’s marijuana tax. In addition to the taxation policies, there are other policy and implementation differences between Washington and Colorado.For example, Washington merged its retail and medical marijuana markets in 2015 and subjected most of the medical marijuana market to retail marijuana regulations and taxes to reduce illegal marijuana cultivation and sales.This merger led to other changes as well. The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board increased the statewide maximum number of marijuana retail licenses from 334 to 556 and increased the cap on county licenses to expand access to medical marijuana.Unlike Washington, Colorado allowed home cultivation of marijuana . This maximum was increased to 12 plants in 2018.
Colorado counties and municipalities could set stricter home cultivation limits.Most notably for the purpose of this study, both states similarly gave local governments the decision-making authority to enact ordinances or regulations to allow or prohibit any or all types of marijuana facilities as businesses within their jurisdictions.In Washington, the local authority to ban or pass a moratorium against marijuana sales was confirmed by the passage of House Bill 2136 in July 2015.Local governments in both states could also restrict aspects of retail operations in their jurisdictions through land use regulations or by setting business regulations, such as limiting hours of sale. In Washington, counties and cities could also limit the number of licenses in their jurisdiction beyond the State Liquor and Cannabis Board’s adopted maximum.The data we collected include county-level marijuana ordinances or regulations and newspaper articles about county-level marijuana policy. Over a six-month period in 2019, two trained research assistants independently conducted policy scans to identify county-level policies regulating recreational marijuana facilities in Colorado and Washington that were enacted by April 1, 2019. For Washington, data were collected from policy documents from the Municipal Research and Services Center , and from county ordinances and codes from the Washington State Association of Counties.Colorado county ordinance data were pulled from the Colorado Counties, Inc., website.To supplement these searches, research assistants reviewed all of the available Washington and Colorado county websites to identify county ordinance documents with missing data, verify data, and collect available zoning maps or planning documents. If the research assistants were unsure about the content or eligibility of a policy document, they checked with the lead author, who made final decisions about the database. Research assistants first completed a policy scan training conducted by the lead author using an existing ten-step guide.Next, they independently reviewed and abstracted pertinent policy data from these documents and systematically input the information into a policy database template. Column titles included the county name, date enacted, source, policy summary, recreational marijuana policy status , and named stakeholders/advocates. We could not identify or find marijuana policy data for 11 of 64 counties in Colorado and 1 of 39 counties in Washington, and are unsure about these counties’ policies. We excluded ordinances that only focused on regulating marijuana intended for medical use, based on the premise that there are different types of marijuana policy categories ,and we were most interested in examining county-level policies and the availability of non-medical marijuana. The lead author conducted a quality assurance review, randomly selected 30% of policies in each state for comparison, and provided the research assistants with a finalized code book. All policies identified were double-coded, and the lead author addressed coding discrepancies in discussion with the coders. During the development of the database, the research assistants took notes about policy changes mentioned in ordinances or regulations and saved copies of earlier ordinance and regulation documents identified, if available. The original policy database included all county level recreational marijuana policies identified for Washington and Colorado , including multiple columns for counties with evolving policy environments. Because several counties only provided their most recent policy document online, we could not ensure the comprehensiveness of the longitudinal policy data set. As a result, the final database used for quantitative analyses included cross sectional data with only the most up-to-date policy information as of April 1, 2019. Research assistants also conducted a search of English-language US newspaper articles published from January 1, 2012, through May 1, 2019, on county-level marijuana policies in Colorado and Washington, using “marijuana or cannabis” and “policy, law, ordinance, or regulation” as key search terms. We used three newspaper databases and targeted newspapers with articles available during the study period.Based on our policy change tracking of county-level marijuana ordinances and review of newspaper articles, we found that some counties were early adopters of permanent ordinances or regulations, but many more counties modified their policies several times during the study period. Policy change was often preceded by information-seeking activities . Key information desired by local policymakers included the effects of marijuana on health, safety, and well-being outcomes; and local public opinion/perspectives on marijuana legalization. Counties also used moratoriums to pause the expansion of the local marijuana market and allow time to engage in policy learning processes or to address residential concerns. For example, in August 2014, Jefferson County, Washington, enacted a moratorium on marijuana production and processing after two public hearings where citizens expressed concern about marijuana production and processing as an “‘attractive nuisance’ for criminals, vandals and minors—said ‘attractive nuisance’ status being contrary to the quiet and pastoral rural nature of much of unincorporated Jefferson County.”