{"id":17517,"date":"2017-07-05T15:20:02","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T23:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/07\/05\/data-links-la-crime-spikes-to-cannabis-dispensary-closures\/"},"modified":"2017-07-06T00:46:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T08:46:25","slug":"data-links-la-crime-spikes-to-cannabis-dispensary-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/07\/05\/data-links-la-crime-spikes-to-cannabis-dispensary-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Links LA Crime Spikes To Cannabis Dispensary Closures"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Recent research shows that Los Angeles, California\u2019s 2010 mass closure of \u201cunregistered\u201d dispensaries was associated with a significant crime spike\u00a0in the surrounding area \u00a0\u2014\u00a0not just immediately in front of the closed shops, but blocks away.<\/span><\/h4>\n
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A<\/span>\u00a0new study<\/a> published in the Journal of Urban Economics found that the closure of more than 400<\/a> Los Angeles, California medical cannabis dispensaries in 2010 caused an increase in crime activity for blocks.<\/p>\n

Study authors, Tom Y. Chang and Mireille Jacobson, discussed their findings<\/a> in the\u00a0Harvard Business Review. They said they looked at the wave of dispensary closures that hit Los Angeles at the turn of the decade because the number of shops closing offered a meaningful data set with an array of variables to consider.<\/p>\n

From the HBR:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the closings were based on a very arbitrary registration process that took place several years prior allowed us to use the closings as a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of MMDs on crime.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

These findings\u00a0are another crushing blow to the rapidly crumbling notion that storefront dispensaries are a threat to public safety. The researchers discovered that closing dispensaries wasn\u2019t just associated with a significant increase in crime right in front of the closed shops, but with a crime spike felt blocks away.<\/p>\n

The researchers stressed that these findings aren\u2019t just interesting \u2014 they fly\u00a0in the face of the prohibitionist narrative on dispensaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur results demonstrated that the dispensaries were not the crime magnets that they were often described as, but instead reduced crime in their immediate vicinity. And when breaking down the effect by types of crime, we found that the increases in crime after dispensary closures were driven by the types of crime most plausibly deterred by bystanders: property crime and theft from vehicles.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Another major finding was how walkable the neighborhood is coming into play. The researchers checked the walk score of all the closed shops and found it had\u00a0a major impact on the results; the dispensaries in areas with low walk scores saw the biggest jump in crime, because the customer base of those dispensaries was providing a natural form of incidental surveillance usually absent from areas with low foot traffic.<\/p>\n

And these findings aren\u2019t unique to cannabis dispensaries: The study also analyzed temporary restaurant closures by the LA Department of Public Health to see if they had\u00a0the same impact on crim in surrounding neighborhoods \u2014 they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found essentially the same pattern as we did with MMDs: The area immediately around a closed restaurant experienced an increase in property crime and theft from vehicles, relative to areas around restaurants that were either recently reopened or about to be closed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We reached out to top pot academic, Dr. Amanda Reiman, to get her take on how the whole \u201cdispensaries are bad for the neighborhood\u201d thing kicked off in the first place.
\n\u201cThe public safety argument largely stems from fear of cannabis consumers and a likening to criminal behavior,\u201d Reiman said. \u00a0\u201cIn the early days of dispensaries, and some places even now, opponents compare the clientele to those in substance abuse treatment centers and halfway houses\u2026 of course, the view of who uses cannabis continues to evolve and erode the fear of the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marijuana Policy Project Senior Communications Manager, Morgan Fox, wasn\u2019t surprised by the findings. He said that legal cannabis isn\u2019t just cleaning up the\u00a0illicit market but also the communities it serves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there are fewer people doing business in the area, fewer security cameras, fewer security guards and fewer witnesses to deter potential criminals, it creates an environment in which crime can flourish,\u201d Fox said. \u201cLegal, regulated marijuana businesses don\u2019t just take crime out of the marijuana market \u2014 they help prevent it in their immediate vicinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox added that, despite the lack of evidence supporting prohibitionist myths like the link between dispensaries and crime, they continue to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard people saying that illicit traffickers are using the legal industry for cover, but I haven\u2019t seen any cases where that was actually occurring. Nevertheless, the argument persists,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cThese kind of claims rarely require proof for people to believe them, often because the people parroting them are authority figures. Unfortunately, the gateway theory still has legs for the same reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Drayton, Deputy Director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, has been handling all things LA for regulated pot\u2019s lobby arm. He says he expects there is still some work to be done in breaking SoCal\u2019s stigmas around cannabis.
\n\u201cI still hear a lot of the same old arguments, even though this is a great study and great research\u201d he said. \u201cI hope it\u2019s getting there but it\u2019s a heavy lift\u2026 we\u2019re dealing with 100 years of propaganda, turning that tide takes time and studies just like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiman said that\u00a0fostering wider acceptance of legal cannabis \u2014 an industry often stifled at the municipal level \u2014 is an excellent mechanism for positively impacting public safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is left is the very real truth about urban development and public safety: Empty buildings attract criminal activity, as do streets with little lighting and foot traffic. When any business vacates a building and no one moves in, conditions for criminal activity increase,\u201d Reiman said. \u201cThe more that cannabis businesses are viewed as legitimate and no different than other businesses, the easier it will be for cities to create policies that actually improve public safety, such as addressing vacant buildings, and work with the cannabis industry on community development.\u201d<\/p>\n

TELL US,\u00a0<\/strong>is there a dispensary in your neighborhood? Has it affected the crime rate?<\/p>\n

The post Data Links LA Crime Spikes To Cannabis Dispensary Closures<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Data Links LA Crime Spikes To Cannabis Dispensary Closures<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent research shows that Los Angeles, California\u2019s 2010 mass closure of \u201cunregistered\u201d dispensaries was associated with a significant crime spike\u00a0in the surrounding area \u00a0\u2014\u00a0not just immediately in front of the closed shops, but blocks away. A\u00a0new study published in the Journal of Urban Economics found that the closure of moreContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,380,80,523,90,488],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17518,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517\/revisions\/17518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}