Big marijuana joint and cannabis buds on laptop on black background, Concept of cannabis and … [+]
A new study has revealed that numerous online dispensaries have inadequate age verification security systems, potentially allowing children to purchase marijuana without undergoing proper and secure age verification processes.
As both medical and adult-use marijuana are legal in more than 30 U.S. states, ensuring that children are prevented from purchasing is one of the core values of most state marijuana legislations. However, several marijuana shops still lack proper age verification systems that prevent them from buying such products.
This is what researchers from Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York have found and published in a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics earlier this week.
Approved by the Northwell Health Institutional Review Board, this cross-sectional study used Google search queries, including “buy marijuana online” and “order weed online,” from July 2022 to June 2023, to identify online marijuana dispensaries that sold to U.S. consumers.
Researchers have identified 80 online marijuana dispensaries across 32 states. Among these, 22 dispensaries (27.5%) offered delivery services for marijuana products to customers in different states. Notably, 21 of these dispensaries (95%) deliver to states with marijuana laws that differ from their own home state’s regulations.
Upon entering the websites, 56…
