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An industry of cannabis sales outlets (often called dispensaries) has proliferated in response to state-sanctioned legalization. This paper focuses on the interaction of dispensary sales staff (budtenders) and consumers, which likely has a substantial impact on the consumer experience. To date, there has been little consideration on this aspect of dispensary sales environment, in which staff provide guidance regarding cannabis products. Training programs for alcohol sales are frequently mandated; in contrast, budtender trainings are not currently required or otherwise regulated by state agencies, and therefore, do not address consumer or community safety. This paper explores responsible cannabis sales training and practice. Differences between cannabis and alcohol sales environments, including product diversity, consumer education and motivations, and market maturity are described. Dispensary staff training, along with management policies may improve the quality of product education, and therefore, improve the safety to consumers and communities.

This paper reports on the enforcement of a zero tolerance (ZT) law implemented on January 1, 1994, in California. Some provisions in that legislation merely intended to make enforcement easy; for example, using handheld, portable, breath-testing devices at the road-side. The research employs a model of the expected official actions, target group reactions, and underage fatal crashes to trace the impact of the law on underage drinking and driving. The results indicate little increase in the intensity of enforcement and no change in the perceived risk of arrest among the target group; however, results do indicate a possible reduction in drinking drivers involved in fatal crashes in that group.

On a typical weekend night between 12:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., about 4 thousand Americans 25 or younger cross back into the United States from a night in Tijuana, Mexico, clubs. More than 40% of the drinkers return the next morning with an illegal blood-alcohol concentration (.08 or higher). To study this phenomenon and to provide data with which to evaluate the community effort in San Diego County, a border research effort involving two separate surveys of individuals entering and leaving Mexico was established in June 1997. This article briefly reviews past roadside survey studies and reports on the survey methods developed to conduct these surveys and the procedures required to analyze the data collected.

During the past five years, a few studies have reported that college students are using stimulants such as Ritalin without a prescription. To date, studies on college Ritalin/Adderall use have been from samples in the eastern or midwestern U.S. This study was designed to examine risk and protective factors associated with Ritalin/Adderall use among a college sample in Southern California. Our findings indicate that 11.2% of students reported past year and over 4% reported past 30 day use of Ritalin/Adderall. In our final analysis, students with lower GPAs, in a fraternity/sorority, not in a committed relationship, and who smoke and use other drugs were more likely to report past year and past 30 day Ritalin/Adderall use. Implications for prevention programming of these findings are discussed.

In recent years researchers have paid substantial attention to the issue of college students' alcohol use. One limitation to the current literature is an over reliance on retrospective, self-report survey data. This article presents field methodologies for measuring college students' alcohol consumption in natural drinking environments. Specifically, we present the methodology from a large field study of student drinking environments along with some illustrative data from the same study. Field surveys, observational methods, sampling issues, and breath alcohol concentration sample collection are detailed.

Alcohol use is highly prevalent among U.S. college students, and alcohol-related problems are often considered the most serious public health threat on American college campuses. Although empirical examinations of college drinking have relied primarily on self-report measures, several investigators have implemented field studies to obtain objective measures of alcohol consumption (blood alcohol concentration) from students in ecologically valid settings. This article describes the methodology of breath-test field survey that is being conducted on the grounds of San Diego State University. Descriptive summaries of the data collected through spring 2003 are provided, and limitations to methodology are discussed.