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The article highlights four major limitations of policy research related to cannabis and cannabinoids and provides suggestions for strengthening research to inform regulatory science at this critical juncture in policy implementation. These limitations include policy as a binary variable, state as primary unit of measure, and timelines based on policy passage dates.

As recreational marijuana expands, it is critical to develop standardized surveillance measures to study the retail environment. To this end, our research team developed and piloted a tool assessing recreational marijuana retailers in a convenience sample of 20 Denver retailers in 2016. The tool assesses: (i) compliance and security (e.g. age-of-sale signage, ID checks, security cameras); (ii) marketing (i.e. promotions, product availability and price) and (iii) contextual and neighborhood features (i.e. retailer type, facilities nearby). Most shops (90.0%) indicated the minimum age requirement, all verified age. All shops posted interior ads (M = 2.6/retailer, SD = 3.4), primarily to promote edibles and other non-smoked products. Price promotions were common in shops (73.7%), 57.9% used social media promotions and 31.6% had take-away materials (e.g. menus, party promotions). Nearly half of the shops (42.1%) advertised health claims. All shops offered bud, joints, honey oil, tinctures, kief, beverages, edibles and topicals; fewer sold clones and seeds. Six shops (31.6%) sold shop-branded apparel and/or paraphernalia. Prices for bud varied within and between stores ($20-$45/"eighth," ~3.5 g). Twelve were recreational only, and eight were both recreational and medicinal. Liquor stores were commonly proximal. Reliability assessments with larger, representative samples are needed to create a standardized marijuana retail surveillance tool.

IntroductionTobacco quitlines are evidence-based cessation resources that have been underutilized. The purpose of this study is to provide population-level data about quitline awareness and utilization in the United States and to assess correlates of awareness and utilization.MethodsData were from the 2009-2010 National Adult Tobacco Survey. Descriptive statistics were produced for national- and state-level quitline awareness and for national quitline utilization. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regressions were used to identify correlates of quitline awareness and utilization.ResultsQuitline awareness among the total sample was 33.9% (current smokers 53.9%, former smokers 34.0%, never-smokers 27.0%). Awareness varied by state (range: 35.8%-84.6% for current smokers). Among current smokers who tried to quit in the past year, correlates of lower awareness included being Black, non-Hispanic, and making

Recent simultaneous increases in nondaily smoking and decreases in daily smoking make the identification of nondaily smokers through biomarker measures as well as the relationship of biomarker levels to smoking behaviors important topics. However, little is known about biochemical identification and carcinogen exposure of nondaily smokers. One tobacco-specific nitrosamine, 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL), has a long half-life, making it a useful marker for long-term and intermittent tobacco exposure. Thus, we examined correlates of urine NNAL levels among nondaily and daily smokers. In 2011, we obtained urine samples from 64 current cigarette smokers (37 nondaily; 27 daily) in the Southeastern US and assessed participants' sociodemographics, smoking-related information, and other tobacco use. Our sample included 14 participants concurrently using other combustible tobacco products and eight concurrently using smokeless tobacco. Of six participants smoking for only one day in the past 30, four had detectable NNAL levels; thus, two nondaily smokers were excluded from the remainder of the analyses. In multivariate analysis, average cigarettes per day on smoking days (B = 23.00, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 13.81, 32.20, P < 0.001) and number of days of smokeless tobacco use (B = 17.11, CI 13.53, 20.70, P < 0.001) were associated with NNAL levels among nondaily smokers (R2 = 0.234). Multivariate analysis indicated that average cigarettes per day (B = 15.83, CI 2.89, 28.76, P = 0.02) was the only significant correlate of NNAL levels among daily smokers. We used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses to identify a potential urinary NNAL (normalized for creatinine) cutoff point of 81.6 pg/mL/g creatinine (88.9% sensitivity, 80.0% specificity) to discriminate nondaily from daily smokers. Excluding polytobacco-product users from these analyses provided similar results. Different correlates of NNAL levels exist among nondaily and daily cigarette smokers. Urine NNAL demonstrates the potential to be used to discriminate nondaily from daily smokers among young adults.

Health risk behaviors including smoking and weight-gain can cause and exacerbate chronic diseases like diabetes. Brief provider advice is an effective intervention to reduce risk from these behaviors. However, behavioral advice is provided more often to those who already have a chronic illness when compared with those who are at risk. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the frequency of provider advice for smoking cessation and weight loss varies between overweight or obese smokers with and without diabetes. BRFSS data from a subset of overweight and obese smokers with (n = 848) and without (n = 6,279) diabetes were analyzed to determine differences in reported provider advice. Overweight and obese smokers with diabetes reported receiving more advice for both weight (46.4% vs. 23.4%, P < 0.001) and smoking (84.5% vs. 72.8%, P < 0.001) compared to those without diabetes. Advice for smoking cessation was reported two to three times more often than advice for weight. Nearly a quarter of those with diabetes and almost half of those without reported no receipt of advice about weight. Results indicate that providers are not adequately addressing overweight and obesity in patients with and at risk for diabetes. Keywords Diabetes * Weight/obesity * Smoking cessation * Health provider advice * Evaluation, Introduction Diabetes is currently the sixth most common cause of death in the United States (Heron, 2007), with a crude prevalence of 9.6% in adults aged 20 years or greater [...]