The city’s Department of Health has contracted to be based in Boston Health resources in action to conduct the study. The nonprofit organization provides research, evaluation, strategic planning and program support services across the country, the statement said.
The study will examine issues such as whether there has been any change in youth marijuana use and whether there have been changes in attitudes since then. Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016. New England treatment approach, Brookline’s first retail pot store opened in 2019.
Reiss said three retail marijuana stores have opened in Brookline and a fourth is expected to open soon.
In Massachusetts, only those 21 and older can purchase, use, possess or cultivate recreational marijuana, according to state law.
The Brookline Health Department also has established a 15-member steering committee to advise the research process. It includes parents, school officials, students, a police representative, a social worker, public health experts and a representative from New England Treatment Access, according to Reiss, who also serves on the panel.
New England Treatment Access did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Both Reiss and Dr. Rosemarie Roqué Gordon, a pediatrician who serves on the steering committee and the city’s Advisory Council on Public Health, said the purpose of the study is not to advocate for stricter rules on legal retail sales in the city.
They said the retailers in Brookline have been responsible and are not marketing their products to young people.
“No one in Brookline, including marijuana dealers, wants kids and teenagers to use marijuana,” Gordon said in an interview.
According to Gordon, the Health Department started the project after the advisory council determined that the city needed to take a deeper look at the issue of retail marijuana in Brookline.
The study will examine whether the availability of retail marijuana to adults has changed attitudes toward marijuana and its use. He will conduct focus groups with students, parents and other stakeholders and look at how, for example, parents talk about marijuana use with their children.
“Marijuana existed in Brookline and all of our surrounding communities before dispensaries. So how is that going to change that?” Gordon said. “We want to know if there is an impact and then if the impact is greater in certain populations, particularly children.”
It will also review other available data on attitudes and use of marijuana, including Brookline Student Health Survey. Data from 2021 showed a decline in reported marijuana use among the city’s ninth- and 12th-graders.
In 2021, 11 percent of students reported using marijuana in the month before the survey, up from 17 percent in 2017. Reiss said researchers want to know more about that change and are looking into whether it was affected by the stay orders. at home during the pandemic.
“One of our hypotheses is that young people were not exposed to peer and peer pressure and did not have as much access to [marijuana]”, said Reiss. “We’re really looking at this data, we’re going [to] see if that continued, or went up in the other direction.”
Reiss said the study will include a preliminary and final report from Health Resources in Action and expects the work to be completed in July. The HRA will also include recommendations to help address public health issues related to marijuana, if any identified in the report.
“For me, the biggest goal is to understand the landscape [and] where there are areas where we can take action, either through policy or programming, to reduce those risks,” Reiss said. “We know that every community has limited resources, and we want to make sure that the policies that we’re creating have an effect.”
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.
