Legalizing recreational cannabis in the U.S. has increased frequency of use by 20%

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ADDICTION

A new study published in the scientific journal Addiction has found that the legalization of recreational cannabis in U.S. states appears to have caused a 20% average increase in cannabis use frequency in those states.

The study evaluated the effects of recreational cannabis legalization in a large sample of adult identical twins.  Of particular interest were the 111 identical twin pairs in which one twin lived in a state with a different recreational cannabis policy to the other.  Twins provide extremely well-matched controls for each other and permit more precise estimation of the causal impact of recreational legalization than studies of unrelated individuals.

Looking at all of the study participants (1,425 individuals living in states with legal recreational cannabis use and 1,997 living in states in which recreational cannabis use is illegal), the study found a ~24% increase in mean cannabis use frequency attributable to legalization.  Looking just at the identical twins living in states with different policies, the twin living in a ‘legal’ state used cannabis ~20% more frequently than their cotwin living in an ‘illegal’ state.  These findings suggest that recreational legalization caused an increase in cannabis use.

Cannabis is the most commonly used federally illegal drug in the United States.  It is also an addictive substance associated with negative health and psychosocial outcomes.  Before 2014, cannabis could not be legally bought or sold for recreational purposes anywhere in the U.S. By early 2022, over 141 million Americans lived in a state with recreationally legal cannabis. 

-- Ends –

For editors:

This paper is free to read for one month after publication from the Wiley Online Library: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16016 or by contacting Jean O’Reilly, Editorial Manager, Addiction, jean@addictionjournal.org.

To speak with lead author Stephanie Zellers please contact her at the University of Minnesota by email (zelle063@umn.edu).

Full citation for article: Zellers SM, Ross JM, Saunders GRB, Ellingson JM, Anderson JE, Corley RP, Iacono W, Hewitt CJ, McGue MK, and Vrieze S (2022) Impacts of Recreational Cannabis Legalization on Cannabis Use: A Longitudinal Discordant Twin Study. Addiction: doi: 10.1111/add.16016

Funding: This work was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health under awards numbers R01DA042755, U01DA046413, R37DA005147, R01DA013240, R01DA036216, R01DA037904, K24DA032555, R01DA035804, P60DA011015, R01DA012845, R01DA038065, R01AA023974, R37AA009367, and R01MH066140.  The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health

Declaration of interests:  The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Addiction is a monthly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research reports on alcohol, substances, tobacco, and gambling as well as editorials and other debate pieces. Owned by the Society for the Study of Addiction, it has been in continuous publication since 1884.

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JOURNAL

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.16016 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Impacts of Recreational Cannabis Legalization on Cannabis Use: A Longitudinal Discordant Twin Study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Aug-2022

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Cannabis legalization boosts use by double-digits

A first-of-its kind study of twins finds those who live in states where marijuana is legal use it 24% more

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

Residents of states where cannabis has been legalized use marijuana 24% more frequently than those living in states where it remains illegal, according to new research published today in the journal Addiction.

The study of more than 3,400 adult twins, by researchers at University of Minnesota and University of Colorado, constitutes some of the strongest evidence yet that legalization causes increased use.

It comes at a time when cannabis use is rising nationwide, including during adulthood—a phase of life when individuals have historically tended to cut back.

“Across America, there is a trend toward using more marijuana but we found that the change is bigger in states where it is legal,” said lead author Stephanie Zellers, a recent University of Minnesota graduate who began the research while a PhD student at CU Boulder’s Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG).

For the study, Zellers and co-authors at CU Boulder, CU Anschutz Medical Campus and University of Minnesota analyzed data from two large longitudinal twin studies, which have tracked twins since childhood in both states: one housed at IBG and another at the Minnesota Center for Twin Family Research.

Participants were asked how frequently they used cannabis before and after 2014 when Colorado became one of the first states to commence legal sales of recreational marijuana. Recreational cannabis remains illegal in Minnesota. Before 2014, there was little difference in use between states, the study found. After 2014, across all participants, residents of states where recreational use of marijuana was legalized used cannabis 24% more frequently than those in illegal states.

When specifically comparing identical twins in which one now lives in a state where marijuana is legal and the other lives in a state where it is illegal, those living in the state with legal marijuana used cannabis 20% more frequently, the researchers found.

Because twins share their genes and tend to share socioeconomic status, parental influences and community norms, they provide well-matched controls for each other, enabling researchers to minimize alternative explanations for results and get at what causes what.

“This is the first study to confirm that the association between legal cannabis and increased use holds within families in genetically identical individuals,” said co-author John Hewitt, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and faculty fellow at IBG. “This makes it much more likely that legalization does, in itself, result in increased use.”

More than 141 million Americans now live in a state with recreationally legal cannabis and, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, use among young adults age 19 to 30 is at an all-time high, with 43% reporting use in the past year and 29% in the last month.

“Typically, what we would expect to see is that people tend to increase use as adolescents and then reduce it as they transition into adult roles, family life and stable jobs,” said Zellers. “Interestingly, we saw escalation, not reduction, in adults.”

The authors note that it is unlikely that legalization would cause those who abstained from marijuana before to pick up the habit.

And preliminary results from their broader ongoing research project suggest increased use may not necessarily be a bad thing.

“In other analyses, we are finding that this increased use is not accompanied by increased problems, may be associated with less alcohol-related problems, and otherwise does not, in general, seem to have adverse consequences,” said Hewitt.

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JOURNAL

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.16016 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Impacts of recreational cannabis legalization on cannabis use: a longitudinal discordant twin study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Aug-2022

Health at home: Requests for home care skyrocketed during COVID-19

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba find changes in access to home care during the COVID-19 pandemic

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA

Tsukuba, Japan—Health care systems have been dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with hospitals and aged care homes receiving the lion's share of the media's attention around the world. But now, researchers from Japan have characterized specific changes in access to home care during this period.

In a study recently published in BMC Research Notes, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that the proportion of individuals requesting home care changed dramatically as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Home care, in which health care professionals provide treatment at a patient's residence, is generally sought as an alternative to hospitals and outpatient facilities. Home care is very resource intensive, as medical professionals are required to travel to the patient and to bring necessary supplies. At present, little is known about how access to home care changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the researchers at Osaka University aimed to address.

"Home care is an important element of multifaceted community health care services," says lead author of the study Professor Jun Hamano. "The changes in access to home care during the COVID-19 pandemic could reveal important information regarding the way that pandemics influence health care infrastructure."

To examine this, the researchers conducted a multicenter cross-sectional web-based anonymous survey of directors of home care facilities in Japan. The participants provided responses to a questionnaire, which was administered in August 2021.

"The results indicated that the number of home visits was much higher compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic," explains senior Professor Hamano. "Further, the number of patients who died at home increased substantially."

The results did not vary according to the number of doctors in a given area or whether the care home was in an urban or rural location.

"Our findings indicate that the restrictions on access to inpatient facilities instated during the COVID-19 pandemic led more individuals to seek treatment at home. As such, health professionals who conducted home visits were likely to have experienced an increased workload, and thus to need more support and cooperation with community health structures," says Professor Hamano.

Home care is a critical community health care service. Understanding the ways in which access to home care changes during global health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may help public health authorities to plan for future situations in terms of the structure of the home care system, support needed for home care staff, and the relationship between the home care and hospital systems.

###
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19K10551, and a research grant of the Mitsubishi Foundation (201930027). The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; the preparation, review, and approval of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Original Paper

The article, "Changes in home visit utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicenter cross-sectional web-based survey" was published in BMC Research Notes at DOI: 10.1186/s13104-022-06128-7

Correspondence

Assistant Professor HAMANO Jun
Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba

Related Link

Faculty of Medicine

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DOI

10.1186/s13104-022-06128-7 

ARTICLE TITLE

Changes in home visit utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicenter cross-sectional web-based survey

Pretreating soil with ethanol protects plants from drought

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RIKEN

 

IMAGE: AFTER TWO WEEKS WITHOUT WATER, WHEAT DID NOT SURVIVE WHEN SOIL WAS PRETREATED WITH WATER (LEFT), BUT THRIVED WHEN THE SOIL WAS PRETREATED WITH 3% ETHANOL (RIGHT). THE SAME WAS TRUE FOR RICE AND THE MODEL PLANT ARABIDOPSIS. view more 

CREDIT: RIKEN

Ethanol can help plants survive in times of drought says a new study conducted at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan. Led by Motoaki Seki, researchers show that adding ethanol to soil allows plants, including rice and wheat, to thrive after two weeks without any water. As ethanol is safe, cheap, and widely available, this finding offers a practical way to increase food production all over the world when water is scarce, without the need for costly, time-consuming, and sometimes controversial production of genetically modified plants. The study was published August 25 in Plant and Cell Physiology.

The foreseeable future includes a steadily rising population and climate change-induced increases in water shortages, two conditions that will inevitably lead to food shortages unless action is taken. One option is to find a way to prevent plants from dying when they don’t have access to water. Genetically modifying plants so that their stomata—the pores in their leaves—stay closed, has been somewhat effective because it prevents water from leaving the plants. However, making genetically modified plants is expensive and time consuming, and countries with the greatest need might not have equal access to these modified crops.

Seki and his team have been working on another approach. Knowing that plants produce ethanol when deprived of water, they reasoned that giving it to plants would protect them from future drought. To test this hypothesis, they grew plants for about two weeks with ample water. Then, they pretreated soil with ethanol for three days, followed by water deprivation for two weeks. About 75% of ethanol-treated wheat and rice plants survived after rewatering, while less than 5% of the untreated plants survived.

Having shown that ethanol can protect these two important crops from drought, they next set out to explain why by focusing on the model plant Arabidopsis. First, they looked at the leaves. They found that soon after ethanol-treated Arabidopsis plants were deprived of water, their stomata closed and leaf temperature went up. By 11 and 12 days of water deprivation, these plants had retained more water in their leaves than the untreated plants.

Then, the researchers analyzed gene expression before and during water deprivation and radio-tagged the ethanol before pretreatment. This allowed them to see what processes were activated during drought and what happened to the ethanol after it was taken up by the plant roots. Even before water was deprived, the ethanol-treated plants began to express genes that are normally expressed during water deprivation. Additionally, around the same time that water content was dropping in untreated leaves, the ethanol-treated plants were making sugars from the ethanol and doing photosynthesis.

Seki says that treating the soil with ethanol mitigates drought on several fronts. First, drought-related genes are expressed even before water is missing, giving the plants a head start in preparation. Then, the stomata close, allowing leaves to retain more water. At the same time, some of the ethanol is used to make a variety of sugars, which provide much needed energy that is normally difficult to get with closed stomata.

“We find that treating common crops such as wheat and rice with exogenous ethanol can increase crop production during drought. As in Arabidopsis, this is likely via changes in the metabolomic and transcriptomic profiles that regulate the drought-stress response,” says Seki. “This offers us a cheap and easy way to increase crop yield even when water is limited, without the need for genetic modification.”

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JOURNAL

Plant and Cell Physiology

DOI

10.1093/pcp/pcac114 

Mandated headgear may lower concussion risk among high school lacrosse players

Rate lower in Florida with mandate meeting professional standard than in states without. Headgear may now be worth considering for high schools and other levels of play

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Mandated headgear meeting professional standards may lower the risk of concussion among high school girls playing lacrosse, suggests research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The concussion rate was lower in the US state where protective headgear is mandatory for high school lacrosse players than in states without such a mandate. 

It may now be worth considering protective headgear for high school players and possibly for other levels of play, such as youth or collegiate level teams, suggest the researchers.

Girls’ lacrosse continues to be the fastest growing high school sport in the USA. Until the pandemic, participation had grown by nearly 54% over the past decade,note the researchers.

While a non-contact sport, incidental concussions and head impacts are common during lacrosse. Because of the non-contact rules for girls’ lacrosse, mandated protective equipment is limited to mouthguards and eyewear. 

In response to growing concerns about the level of incidental contact in the game, the use of soft-shell headgear meeting the ASTM International F3137 performance standard has been permitted since January 2017.

But the use of headgear in lacrosse is the subject of heated debate, with detractors arguing that it prompts more aggressive ‘compensatory’ behaviours during play, contributing to increased injury risk.

To explore the issues further, the researchers compared concussion rates among high school girls’ lacrosse players in the state of Florida, where headgear was mandated in 2018, with 31 states without a headgear mandate for the 2019, 2020, and 2021 seasons.

The researchers drew on concussion injury and risk of injury (exposure) data entered into an existing national high school injury registry by athletic trainers: the High School National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network (NATION). 

Concussions were defined as injuries that occurred as a result of participation in a girls’ high school lacrosse game or practice and diagnosed by an athletic trainer, doctor, or other healthcare professional.

To count, a single athlete had to have actively taken part in one high school-sanctioned practice or game, regardless of duration, in which she was exposed to the risk of injury.

Over a total of 289 school seasons (mandated 96; 193 without a mandate) between 2019 and 2021, 141 concussions (25 mandated; 116 without a mandate) were reported across all games and practices during more than 357, 225 exposures (91,074 mandated; 266,151 without a mandate), resulting in an overall rate of 0.39 concussions/1000 athlete exposures. 

Overall, the concussion injury rate per 1000 athlete exposures was higher among the group without a mandate (0.44) than in the group with a mandate (0.27). 

The concussion rate was higher during match play than during practice for both groups, but significantly (74%) higher during matches among players without mandated headgear.

The researchers acknowledge that not all high schools have athletic training services available or access to NATION monitoring, so this may limit the generalisability of their findings to schools without such services, which are more likely to be in more deprived areas.

And they emphasise: “The results of this study are highly encouraging for athlete safety in high school girls’ lacrosse; however, a measure of caution should be employed given that this study did not employ randomisation or comparisons of injury rates pre and post mandate within the state of Florida.”

Nevertheless, they write: “Our findings provide evidence that mandated use of lacrosse headgear reduces the incidence of concussion in high school girls’ lacrosse game play. We observed that girls participating in states not mandating lacrosse headgear had a 59% greater overall incidence of concussion than those required to wear headgear. 

“Moreover, a 74% greater incidence of concussion was observed during game play in states not mandating headgear.”

And they suggest: “It is possible that protective headgear may have similar effects in different populations of girls’ lacrosse. These may include athletes at the collegiate level or higher, athletes at the developmental, or youth levels or athletes of the same age who are participating in club lacrosse.”

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JOURNAL

British Journal of Sports Medicine

DOI

10.1136/bjsports-2021-105031 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of headgear mandate and concussion injury rates in girls’ high school lacrosse

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Aug-2022

Endangered Māui dolphins have changed their diet

New Zealand’s Māui dolphin, the world’s most endangered marine dolphin, changed its diet during the past 30 years, research shows.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

New Zealand’s Māui dolphin, the world’s most endangered marine dolphin, changed its diet during the past 30 years, research shows.  Scientists checked tiny skin samples collected from the dolphins between 1993 and 2020 for microchemical markers revealing diet.
Turns out the dolphins’ meals became less diverse from 2008, when a marine sanctuary restricted fishing in their habitat, which stretches along 40 kilometres of Tamaki Makaurau’s west coast.
“We think that the sanctuary increased the amount of food available to the dolphins,” says the lead author of the paper, Courtney Ogilvy, who’s a PhD student at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. “That meant they were able to get more of their preferred prey, and not work so hard to get many different types of food.”
The scientists’ analysis doesn’t reveal exactly which types of fish were consumed, just the breadth of diet. (Māui dolphins typically eat fish smaller than 10 centimetres in length, dining on species such as ahuru, red cod and sprats.) A temporary change in diet occurred during the El Niño weather event in 2015 and 2016.
“Dramatic climate events like El Niño can change water temperatures and currents, meaning that fish from different regions can move into the dolphins’ habitat,” says co-author Professor Rochelle Constantine. “As you really are what you eat, this change is reflected in the microchemical markers in the dolphin’s skin.”
The microchemical markers are called stable isotopes. “Overall this is good news for the Māui dolphin,” says co-author Associate Professor Emma Carroll. “They are able to find their preferred prey and so far they are adapting when conditions change.”

Now, the scientists plan to investigate how climate change will alter the dolphins’ habitat.
“We know they are likely to be at their maximum thermal limit, so increasing ocean temperatures may eventually shift the distribution of the dolphins and their preferred prey,” says Professor Constantine. Located only in Aotearoa, the number of Māui dolphins aged a year or older may be as few as 54, according to the latest estimate.  

The Marine Mammal Sanctuary, on the west coast of the North Island, Te Ika-a-Māui was established in 2008 and expanded in 2020.
 

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JOURNAL

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.220470 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Diet variation in a critically endangered marine predator revealed with stable isotope analysis

Study finds circular utilization of urban tree waste can help mitigate climate change

A multi-scale lifecycle assessment conducted by Prof. Yuan Yao and researchers from the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology explains how eco-friendly uses for urban tree waste could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

YALE UNIVERSITY

Cities are defined, by most, by their built environment: towering buildings, miles of roads and sidewalks, modes of transportation, and public utilities. But with the threats of climate change looming, researchers are looking for ways to turn vast swaths of natural areas in urban environments into tools to help offset the significant greenhouse gas emissions that cities produce.

In a recent study published in the journal One Earth, researchers from the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology conducted a multi-scale lifecycle assessment that explored methods for utilizing urban tree waste. Wide-scale adoption of more eco-friendly uses of urban tree waste could significantly reduce global warming potential in the United States, according to the researchers' findings. 

“Cities have lots of trees and they will not live forever,” says co-author Yuan Yao, assistant professor of industrial ecology and sustainable systems. “You also have leaves and other tree waste. We wanted to investigate different ways we could use this waste, the potential pathways and benefits, to create something of value.”

According to Kai Lan, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao’s lab and the lead author of the study, there are roughly 50 million hectares of urban forest in the United States. As a result, more than 45 million dry tons of urban tree waste are generated every year in the United States — waste that usually ends up in landfills to be disposed of, contributing greatly to greenhouse gas emissions.

The study outlines several different methods for creating value from urban tree waste, including turning tree trunks into wood chips or lumber for wood products, composting leaves, and turning tree residue into biochar, a carbon-rich material made from biomass. Yao specifically highlighted the numerous applications for biochar, which include agriculture, energy, wastewater treatment, and carbon storage.

The researchers caution that the environmental benefits of new uses for urban tree waste will vary across states and cities. Bingquan Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao’s lab and an author of the study, says that several major U.S. cities have developed urban tree management strategies and that those efforts should be expanded.

“I hope this paper can provide some quantitative evidence that programs like these are working in climate mitigation efforts,” says Yao, who added that she also hopes this study lays the foundation for global collaboration on the topic.

“This all aligns with the circular economy concept — turning waste into something of value,” says Lan. “But it’s not just traditional waste, like plastic or paper. Tree waste is very important, too.”

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JOURNAL

One Earth

DOI

10.1016/j.oneear.2022.07.001 

ARTICLE TITLE

Circular utilization of urban tree waste contributes to the mitigation of climate change and eutrophication

 

Boeing Crewed Starliner Flight Delayed Until February 2023

By Keith Cowing

Press Release

NASA

August 26, 2022

Uncrewed Boeing Starliner Arrival At ISS, NASA

NASA and Boeing are targeting an early February 2023 launch for the first CST-100 Starliner flight with astronauts to the International Space Station.

Preparations are underway for the launch of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) as teams work to ready the hardware, crew, and mission support teams for flight as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Two NASA astronaut test pilots, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, will fly on CFT to the space station, where they will live and work for approximately eight days. Mission and crew support teams and the CFT astronauts are continuing with preparations and training. NASA and Boeing teams recently conducted an integrated crew exercise to rehearse the prelaunch timeline and responses to various launch event scenarios. In the coming weeks, Wilmore and Williams will don their spacesuits and climb aboard their crew module to check out the vehicle systems and interfaces that support their health and safety.

Refurbishment of the CFT crew module following the first Orbital Flight Test in December 2019 is progressing. Its external shell and thermal protection system will be completed next, followed by preflight checks to finalize the crew module build and test phase. Production of a new service module also is progressing, with teams wrapping up acceptance testing of the thermal control system, installing the pressurant system and integrating the propulsion system. This service module incorporates the same valve mitigations as the OFT-2 spacecraft. That purge system performed as needed during OFT-2 and a similar system has been implemented into the service module for CFT as a preventative measure. Once both the crew module and service module are completed, the two will be mated for flight.

During OFT-2, which launched May 19, Starliner spent six days in space, orbited the Earth 94 times and covered a total distance of 2,467,406 miles. Starliner achieved all flight test objectives and mission operations demonstrations, including rendezvous and docking maneuvers and the ability to execute an abort if needed once in the vicinity of the space station. Additionally, Starliner had a normal launch, trajectory, orbital insertion, and approach, rendezvous and docking with space station.

Throughout the OFT-2 data reviews, the team has verified Starliner’s subsystems performed as needed during the flight. This included environmental control and life support, landing, power, guidance navigation and control, docking and ascent abort emergency detection system validation, and atmospheric entry with aero-deceleration.

NASA and Boeing also are working to close out the OFT-2 in-flight anomalies prior to Starliner’s next flight with astronauts. Those include the early shutoff of some thrusters and a cooling loop anomaly. System enhancements to improve crew interfaces and streamline spacecraft operations are also planned.

For the crewed flight, Boeing’s Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Following a successful CFT mission, NASA will begin the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for crew missions to the space station. Regular commercial crew rotation missions enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the orbiting laboratory. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration. As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.

Social media boycott of Goya did not harm sales

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Calls for a boycott of Goya Foods products in 2020 actually caused the company’s nationwide sales to rise for a few weeks before subsiding to previous levels, according to new Cornell University research.

Even in geographic areas where customers did forgo Goya products, which include packaged foods and spice mixes, sales revived after a few weeks, according to a new paper co-authored by by Jūra Liaukonytė, the Dake Family Associate Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.

“Based on the stories in the press, we saw that the boycott narrative was significant and we expected Goya sales to go down, but the opposite happened,” said Liaukonytė, co-author of “Spilling the Beans on Political Consumerism:  Do Social Media Boycotts and Buycotts Translate to Real Sales Impact?” published in the current issue of the journal Marketing Science.

 

The study was co-authored by Anna Tuchman, associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Xinrong Zhu, assistant professor of marketing at Imperial College Business School in London.

With instances of so-called political consumerism (think recent protests against Disney, Spotify, McDonald’s, and others) continually hitting the headlines in today’s politically polarized environment, Liaukonytė and her colleagues sought to understand the actual sales effect of social media posts targeting specific brands.

In Goya’s case, protests favoring a boycott emerged in the summer of 2020 after company chief executive Robert Unanue publicly praised then-President Donald Trump. Twitter posts favoring a boycott were 75% higher than calls for a “buycott” urging buying more Goya products, the researchers estimate.

Analyzing purchasing data from market research company Numerator, they found that Goya’s net sales rose by about 22% during the two weeks after the controversy erupted. The researchers also examined county-level election results from the 2020 presidential season and saw that sales rose far more in Republican-dominated counties than in Democratic counties.

While the sales jump in Republican areas may have reflected the general publicity surrounding Goya, it more likely showed purchases by politically motivated first-time Goya buyers supporting Unanue’s pro-Republican message, Liaukonytė said.

In Democratic-dominated counties, where the Goya brand has traditionally been more popular than in Republican areas, sales also temporarily increased despite the push to boycott, the researchers found. Boycotters in heavily Democratic counties were overshadowed by buycotters, who drove a slight short-term increase in spending on Goya products.

One possible reason: Because only a relatively small proportion of households nationwide are regular Goya customers in the first place, few households could forgo Goya products compared with the number that could become first-time Goya buyers, the researchers note.

Even the company’s core Latino customers largely continued to buy, perhaps because they felt especially loyal to the brand or couldn’t easily find adequate substitutions. Indeed, data showed that sales of certain Goya items such as canned beans temporarily declined in some Democratic areas, likely reflecting shoppers’ ability to switch easily to any of dozens of competing bean brands. But Goya’s adobo seasoning has far fewer competitors, leading Goya shoppers to stick with the company’s adobo spice mix and keeping sales of that product steady even in the most Democratic areas, the researchers said. 

Sales data showed that about three weeks after the protests began, Goya’s overall sales reverted to pre-boycott levels, likely indicating that the media had moved on or consumers had tired of the controversy.

“Political consumerism campaigns on social media and their portrayal in the press are not always reflected in sales, and the risk of damage to their companies during a boycott may be overblown,” Liaukonytė said. Nevertheless, she said, more research needs to be done to understand these results, and whether executives need to worry about fallout from contentious political statements. A company’s size, profile, market dominance, and other characteristics all affect its fate amid controversy.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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JOURNAL

Marketing Science

DOI

10.1287/mksc.2022.1386 

ARTICLE TITLE

Frontiers: Spilling the Beans on Political Consumerism: Do Social Media Boycotts and Buycotts Translate to Real Sales Impact? 

UCI study examines distorted time perception during pandemic

May be an important risk factor to target with early interventions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 23, 2022 — The passage of time was altered for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from difficulty in keeping track of days of the week to feeling that the hours themselves rushed by or slowed down. In prior work, these distortions have been associated with persistent negative mental outcomes such as depression and anxiety following trauma, making them an important risk factor to target with early interventions, according to a study by University of California, Irvine researchers.

The study, recently published online in the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, documents how pervasive the experience, known as “temporal disintegration” in psychiatric literature, was in the first six months of the pandemic. The team also found that pandemic-related secondary stresses such as daily COVID-19-related media exposure, school closures, lockdowns and financial difficulties were predictors of distortions in perceived time.

“Continuity between past experiences, present life and future hopes is critical to one’s well-being, and disruption of that synergy presents mental health challenges,” said corresponding author E. Alison Holman, UCI professor of nursing. “We were able to measure this in a nationally representative sample of Americans as they were experiencing a protracted collective trauma, which has never been done before. This study is the first to document the prevalence and early predictors of these time distortions. There are relatively new therapies that can be used to help people regain a more balanced sense of time, but if we don’t know who is in need of those services, we can’t provide that support.”

Researchers assessed results of responses regarding distorted time perceptions and other pandemic related experiences from a probability-based national sample of 5,661 participants from the National Opinion Online Research Center AmericaSpeak panel. Surveys were conducted during March 18-April 18, 2020 and Sept. 26-Oct. 26, 2020 with respondents who had completed a mental and physical health survey prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Given that distortions in time perception are a risk factor for mental health problems, our findings have potential implications for public health. We are now looking at temporal disintegration, loneliness, and mental health outcomes over 18 months into the pandemic,” Holman said. “This will help us gain insight into how these common experiences during the pandemic work together, so we can better understand how to help people struggling with these challenges.”

The UCI team included Nickolas M. Jones, psychological sciences postdoctoral researcher; Roxane Cohen Silver, Distinguished Professor of psychological science, medicine and health; and Dana Rose Garfin, assistant adjunct professor of nursing and public health, who is now with the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Funding for this work was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant numbers SES 2026337 and SES 2049932; and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Award K01 MD013910.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

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JOURNAL

Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy

ARTICLE TITLE

Distortions in Time Perception During Collective Trauma: Insights From a National Longitudinal Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic