While skunky-smelling buds of dried marijuana are not likely to appeal to children, cannabis-infused edibles such as brownies, cookies and candies could. And with edibles making up a and growing segment of the pot market, states are grappling with how to regulate those products to most effectively protect children.

A new from the 91Ě˝»¨ School of Law’s furthers those efforts by identifying the factors that make food attractive to children. Commissioned by the state Liquor and Cannabis Board, the report involved looking at research on what physical elements of food appeal to children and the role that marketing and branding play.

Among the report’s findings:

• Color is a key factor in children’s food choices, with red, orange, yellow and green foods preferred
• Food in novel shapes such as stars or animals is more appealing to children than food cut into slices or sticks
• Children like foods that smell sweet, fruity or like candy
• Taste, rather than smell, is a more useful deterrent for children
• Odor alone is unlikely to deter children
• Cartoon and other promotional characters powerfully influence children’s food preferences
• Advertising influences food and beverage choices among children aged 2 to 11, but there is less evidence that teens are swayed by food advertising

, executive director of the Cannabis Law and Policy Project, said while the research focused on children’s food preferences generally, the findings are applicable to how children might approach cannabis-infused edibles.

“There is scant research of testing children with cannabis-infused edibles, and for good ethical reasons,” he said. “So we looked at research on regular food products, but the same factors that make particular foods appealing to children, such as taste, color and packaging, would likely also apply to edibles,” he said.

The report also looked at marijuana cannabis packaging and labeling regulations in various states. Most states require edibles to be sold in child-resistant, opaque packaging. Washington introduced rules in 2014 prohibiting recreational marijuana cannabis stores from selling gummy bears, lollipops and cotton candy infused with cannabis, and also prohibits cannabis products that require cooking or baking.

MĂ©ndez said cannabis-infused edibles are sometimes in less-regulated states to look like popular candy or food brands — for example, “Pot Tarts” that have the same cartoonish font and blue background as Kellogg’s well-known toaster pastries.

“In some states where there’s medical marijuana cannabis but not a strong hand in regulation, you get products that would be very attractive to children, and that’s seen as a hazard,” he said.

“We review all edible products and packaging to ensure they are not especially appealing to children,” said Liquor and Cannabis Board Director Rick Garza. “This new study will help further that important responsibility.”

The report, MĂ©ndez said, underscores the complex set of determinants that drives children’s food preferences.

“Of these factors we looked at, no one factor was clearly indicative of a danger to children,” he said. “So if you have a food that’s shaped as a bear, that doesn’t automatically make it attractive to kids, especially if it smells or tastes bad.

“It’s more of a multifactor test, and you need to factor in all of these things that can help give you an idea about whether a food could be more attractive to children.”

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For more information, contact MĂ©ndez at smendez@uw.edu or 206-616-3920.

The , co-hosted by the and 91Ě˝»¨, will be held at the and feature 30-plus speakers. The day aims to provide a comprehensive look at current and future regulations governing the retail and medical marijuana industries in Washington and elsewhere.

The conference kicks off with an overview of state marijuana policy from , director of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, and a presentation from Seattle City Attorney on policy issues in the city.

Following a discussion about recent litigation in Washington’s marijuana industry and an open panel discussion, the event will break off into three afternoon tracks.

A business and enterprise section will delve into banking issues and legal practices in the industry and include a panel discussion with industry representatives. A science and medical track will explore issues ranging from the use of pesticides on marijuana crops to educating consumers about marijuana risks, and a social impact section will look at legal and business practices, cannabis regulations and enforcement, and diversity (or lack thereof) in the industry.

The 91Ě˝»¨conference comes at a time of rapid changes in the national marijuana landscape. Washington — which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, along with Colorado — is in the process of merging its medical and retail marijuana markets. Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia legalized marijuana in 2014, and many are looking to , where a vote on legalization appears headed for the November ballot, as a bellwether of national legalization efforts.

The public event is the first put on by the Cannabis Law and Policy Project, launched by 91Ě˝»¨law professor in fall 2014 to research regulatory issues around Washington’s new legal marijuana industry. The project’s executive director, , said while conference participation will count toward attorneys’ mandatory continuing education credits, the day is aimed at a broader audience.

“We’re going to have a mix of policymakers, lawyers and industry leaders,” he said. “I’m excited about the conference. We’re going to have a good discussion about the various issues impacting the cannabis industry.”

The conference will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room 138 at the , 4293 Memorial Way NE. Registration is available , with an early fee of $85 or $120, and $115 or $150 after June 3, and $25 for students anytime.

For more information, contact MĂ©ndez at smendez@uw.edu or 206-616-3920.

The project’s executive director, , recently sat down for an interview with 91Ě˝»¨Today to talk about the report and the state’s rapidly evolving pot industry.

Q: Your study estimates that between 1.7 and 2 million square feet of marijuana plant production will be needed to meet Washington’s medical marijuana market. How did you reach that estimate? 

SM: We had our phone survey of dispensaries, which produced a couple of figures we relied on, the two big ones being the estimated number of dispensaries in the state, 273, and the estimated average monthly sales of marijuana flower. From those monthly sales, we then estimated annual sales for the whole state. With those figures, we utilized other research to estimate the canopy, or square footage, of marijuana plants needed to satisfy patient demand.

Smoking marijuana is not the only way people use it. It can be consumed in a variety of ways, and we made three broad categorizations of these uses: flower, which is generally smoked, edibles and concentrates. We realized early on that not accounting for these other forms of use would create a big hole in our estimates. I think as time goes on, you’re going to see those being consumed more. A lot of people, particularly new entrants to the cannabis market, are concerned about the health effects of smoking, so I expect market share of edibles and concentrates to grow over time.

Q: What challenges were there in conducting this research?

SM: We had to learn as we went along. Something that the students and I learned as we were producing the report was the difficulty in generalizing edibles and concentrates. First of all, there’s a huge variety of products out there of varying size and prices, though most servings now contain 10 milligrams of THC. Second, these products are generally not made from buds — flower — they’re extracted from “shake,” or basically leftovers of the marijuana plant. This was just one of many complications in the calculations that we had to account for. There were other complications that, given the time and resources we had, we simply couldn’t account for.

Also, there was the challenge of finding solid data on what has long been a black market and a stigmatized market. How many dispensaries are in the state? That’s actually a pretty hard number to come up with. Other states have medical marijuana systems where product and stores are regulated and tracked, but for a variety of reasons that never really happened in Washington. So the state didn’t really know how many dispensaries were out there. Just about anybody could set up shop, put a green cross out front and start selling product.

The other challenge was what we could do with our limited time and resources. We had about three months to do it. It wasn’t just 273 dispensaries that the students called. We came up with 467 potential dispensaries. Some of those were wrong numbers; some had gone out of business. But we had to call every single one. Of the ones that we got no response from, we had to call back. It was 600 to 700 phone calls that the students had to make in those couple of months.

Q: Under state law, all dispensaries must convert to retail stores or close by July 1 of this year. What does that mean for dispensaries and their customers?

SM: Under the new laws, registered patients will be able to grow up to six plants on their own, and they can set up collective gardens. Aside from that — or buying illegally, which is still a significant issue — they will have to go to a licensed retail marijuana store. These new laws effectively end the medical marijuana system as we’ve known it by bringing it under the umbrella of the recreational marijuana system. Stores will have to get an endorsement by the state to sell medical marijuana. To date, about 80 percent of stores will have this. The LCB has capped retail licenses at 556 for the state. To date, 359 licenses have been issued, and 276 of those have reported sales.

One thing I’ve heard that has people in the medical marijuana community frustrated is that patients have to get onto a patient registry that the state government is setting up. Patients can possess a larger amount of marijuana and don’t have to pay sales tax on it. But some patients, at least, don’t want to be on some government list. There are also claims out there that the LCB is underestimating patient demand. I’m sure there are other complaints as well, and the LCB is doing the best they can to accommodate patients and the market as a whole.

Q: What does the change mean for the industry overall in the state?

SM: It’s transforming the entire market, so it’s going to change a lot. A lot of dispensaries have shut down, some have left the state, and many have converted to retail stores. That’s been going on for the last year or so. There’s a limited number of stores that can operate in each locality. For example, Seattle was recently allotted an additional 21 retail licenses by the LCB, far lower than the number of applicants out there. So not everyone, even if they were good actors, could get a license to operate.

The market right now is pretty volatile. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s going to settle down. You’re going to see a system that is now tracked and taxed, and the state will know in a way it didn’t before how many stores are operating, how much product is being sold and moved around, and how many patients are using product, at least in the legitimized system. Again, combating the black market will continue to be an issue.

Q: How much is the recreational market worth?

SM: According to the , total retail recreational marijuana sales for 2016 to date in Washington are nearing $850 million, compared with about $260 million in 2015. Certainly a lot of growth for one year. Give it five years. It’s going to be a lot bigger.

A from ArcView in California estimates that the national market will grow from $7.1 billion this year to $22.8 billion in 2020 – three times as big in the course of four years. A number of people I’ve spoken to, policymakers as well, believe the horse is out of the barn — that this is not going to be shut down by the federal government. You already have of the American public that is in favor of legalization. The federal government would be picking a big fight at this point if they shut down state-legal marijuana.

Q: Where is Washington’s marijuana grown?

SM: Most outdoor marijuana is grown in Eastern Washington, where there’s more sunlight and more cheap space. Indoor operations are all over the state, but it becomes a simple question of profitability. Where is real estate cheap? Indoor grows are not restricted by weather like outdoor grows are, but it’s a lot more expensive to grow indoors.

The advantage with indoor is you can do multiple harvests a year. You’re not restricted by the seasons and lack of sunlight in winter. But indoor operations take a lot more capital to set up. It takes a lot of money to set up a greenhouse and all the systems and equipment.

The price of marijuana is going down, and long term there’s no reason to think it’s going to go up again. One producer has told me the future of marijuana production is outdoors, simply because it’ll be so much cheaper to operate. He’s probably right.

Q: How do you see the market evolving over the next five years?

SM: I think the biggest change you’re going to see is the market divided into different price points. Some have compared it to the wine industry — on the bottom you have your cheap wine that is produced and consumed in massive quantities, and on the top you have the high-quality and expensive stuff. Different customers will be attracted to different parts of this spectrum.

The Washington market is also going to be affected by what’s happening nationwide. The big one that everyone’s talking about is California possibly . That will transform the entire industry. California is the seventh largest economy in the world and is responsible for 80 percent of all marijuana grown in the United States. It’s easily bigger than all the other four legal marijuana states combined, and just about everyone in the industry thinks California will legalize it this year.

So that will affect the market in Washington, because as more states go legal you’re going to see less marijuana tourism. It’s going to be less of a novelty. It will affect the economy in a number of other ways too.

Q: So that’s not necessarily going to be good for the market here?

SM: Well, it depends on your perspective. Good for consumers? Probably. Cheap goods are generally good for consumers. A lot of people are not happy about this becoming a corporatized industry, and I think that’s something you can expect in the next five years. There are public health concerns too. I think you’re going to see a lot more investing in the market, and you’re going to see the system increasingly corporatized, which is to say you’re going to see some very big players, and that’s going to squeeze small businesses.

Anybody who had some notion that this would just be a bunch of local mom-and-pop shops is going to be disappointed. For better or for worse, we live in a country with some very large corporations that dominate our economy. For small businesses, being bought by those corporations is often the path to success. Is that a good or bad thing? It depends who you ask.

For more information, contact MĂ©ndez at smendez@uw.edu or 206-616-3920.

The state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) tasked the UW-based Cannabis Law and Policy Project (CLPP) with calculating the “grow canopy,” or square footage, required to supply the state’s medical marijuana market as it becomes folded into the state’s retail system, as required by the . The group’s report estimates that between 1.7 and 2 million square feet — or the equivalent of 30 to 34 football fields — of plants is needed to satisfy the medical marijuana market, and concludes that the 12.3 million square feet of canopy currently approved by the LCB is enough to supply the state’s total marijuana market.

Medical marijuana dispensaries must either obtain a state license or close by July 1, 2016. Of the 343 retail stores licensed by the LCB, approximately 81 percent have sought endorsements to their license to sell marijuana to authorized medical patients.

“It was important to design this study the right way and engage in careful empirical research reaching out directly to medical dispensaries and growers across the state,” said , principal investigator for the report, CLPP faculty director and Boeing International Professor at 91Ě˝»¨Law.

CLPP Executive Director Sam Mendez described the survey process: “There’s no master list of these dispensaries, so we used a variety of resources to identify as many as possible. Once the survey was complete, we applied the findings to other published research regarding averages of marijuana output per square foot, outdoor and indoor growing market share and amounts used for edibles and concentrates to reach our estimates.”

The report found that:

• There were an estimated 273 medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington in January 2016
• Dispensaries sell an average of 9.55 pounds of marijuana flower monthly
• The average price of marijuana per gram sold by these dispensaries is less than $10
• Marijuana flower comprises 60 percent of sales at dispensaries, followed by concentrates (22 percent) and edibles (18 percent)
• The potential market value based on 10 million square feet of canopy is more than $8 billion

Determining the size of Washington’s medical marijuana market was no easy task for the 91Ě˝»¨team, since dispensaries and collective gardens have gone mostly unregulated until recently. The 91Ě˝»¨researchers, which included five law students, started by compiling a list of possible Washington dispensaries using the databases of three websites — leafly.com, weedmaps.com and headshopfinder.com — among other sources. They came up with 467 possible contacts and called them for phone surveys in January and February 2016.

Interviewees were asked whether the dispensary grows its own marijuana, how much marijuana it sells, the average price of various products and what proportion of sales are flower, edibles, tinctures and concentrates, among other questions. Some refused to participate. Others did not appear to be affiliated with a dispensary or seemed to be out of business. The researchers also posted an online survey, sending it to all applicants for recreational marijuana retail licenses and promoting it widely through social media. All told, they found 273 likely dispensaries.

A released in December 2015 by BOTEC Analysis Corp. estimated that the state’s marijuana market is divided roughly into thirds for medical, recreational and illicit use. Since February 2014, as an interim policy, the LCB has restricted marijuana producers to a single license. That decision will later be put into rule.

The Cannabis Law and Policy Project was launched in 2014 to provide thoughtful leadership on the responsible development of recreational and medical marijuana industries in Washington State and across the country. The group, which is based in the 91Ě˝»¨School of Law, but draws on experts in various other departments, focuses on advising the state on regulatory issues related to marijuana.

The report’s lead authors are O’Connor and Mendez, with contributing law student authors Ada Danelo, Harry Fukano, Kyle Johnson, Chad Law and Daniel Shortt. Dr. , a professor in the 91Ě˝»¨School of Medicine, was a consultant on the report.

It’s called the , and is overseen by law professor and funded by an $185,000 grant through the .

Senate Bill 5052, signed into law by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in April, merges the state’s medical cannabis market with the recreational market approved by voters in 2012 via Initiative 502.

“Right now, state agencies, the emerging cannabis industry and the public are looking for trusted, objective sources of research and information,” O’Connor said. The UW’s has already played a valuable role in such matters, he noted, especially in preventing and treating marijuana abuse.

“But there has not been a law and policy counterpart to the institute with faculty, staff, and students trained in law and regulatory systems, particularly with regard to approaching marijuana as a legal but well-regulated market similar to that for alcohol, dietary supplements or pharmaceuticals,” he said.

“The Cannabis Law and Policy Project was created to fill that gap.”

The group’s work begins this fall in tandem with the law school’s , also led by O’Connor, with , also a 91Ě˝»¨law professor.

In this new seminar, students will learn about state and federal laws governing recreational marijuana use, hear from industry leaders and practitioners of cannabis law and assist in the research for the state liquor and cannabis board.

Specifically, O’Connor said, the new policy project will research and estimate the size of both medical and illicit markets for marijuana to assist the state liquor and cannabis board in wisely implementing SB 5052. The group also will summarize the science literature on marijuana for the board with input from around campus, O’Connor said, in order to suggest objective criteria to the board to use in reviewing applicants for marijuana vending licenses.

The funding will pay for faculty and staff time for the Cannabis Law and Policy Project as well as some student work, though June 2016. Students in the seminar will receive academic credit, but may also be hired by the project, under the grant, for administrative and research assistance, O’Connor said.

The policy project’s aim is to submit a preliminary report on the state’s marijuana markets to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board by November, and a full report early in 2016, with additions and refinements though the rest of the year.

Though the group is just starting its work, O’Connor said, “We have been thrilled at the positive response we have received from the different parts of the cannabis ecosystem.”

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For more information, contact O’Connor at 206-543-7491 or soconnor@uw.edu.