Local availability of cannabis retail outlets on parents’ cannabis use, acceptability, and perceived addictiveness: A longitudinal study in Washington State

RESEARCH ARTICLE Local availability of cannabis retail outlets on parents’ cannabis use, acceptability, and perceived addictiveness: A longitudinal study in Washington State Vi T. Le 1*, Jennifer A. Bailey1, Marina Epstein1, Matthew D. Dunbar2, A. Karryn Satchell1, Danielle M. Pandika1 1 Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 2 Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America * Abstract Objective OPEN ACCESS Citation: Le VT, Bailey JA, Epstein M, Dunbar MD, Satchell AK, Pandika DM (2026) Local availability of cannabis retail outlets on parents’ cannabis use, acceptability, and perceived addictiveness: A longitudinal study in Washington State. PLoS One 21(5): e0348182. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0348182 Editor: Diego A. Forero, Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, COLOMBIA Received: January 13, 2026 Accepted: April 10, 2026 Published: May 27, 2026 Copyright: © 2026 Le et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data availability statement: Data cannot be shared publicly because participant consent did not include permission for public data deposition. Requests for data can be directed to the first author, the Principal Investigator of SSDPTIP (second author; contact via jabailey@ Parents represent a growing yet understudied population of people who use cannabis in the era of legalization. Studies examining how increasing availability of cannabis retail stores affects parental cannabis use, norms, and perceived harm are needed to guide interventions to support families. This longitudinal study examines whether perceived and objectively measured cannabis outlet availability are associated with parents’ cannabis use frequency, acceptability, and perceived addictiveness in Washington State, where nonmedical cannabis retail stores opened in 2014. Method Parents (n = 471) in the Seattle Social Development Project – The Intergenerational Project were surveyed in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Multilevel models were used to estimate within- and between-person associations between (a) perceived cannabis outlet availability (self-reported number of outlets in one’s neighborhood) and (b) objective cannabis outlet availability (number of outlets within a 10-minute drive time from home) with past-year cannabis use frequencies, acceptability of parental cannabis use, and perceived addictiveness. Results Local retail outlet availability was higher in later waves. There were significant between-person associations, such that parents residing in neighborhoods with greater cannabis outlet availability (both perceived and objectively measured) over the course of the study had greater cannabis use frequency, higher acceptability of use, and lower perceived addictiveness. When comparing the same parents over PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0348182 May 27, 2026 1 / 12 uw.edu), or the Social Development Research Group (contact via ). Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grants R01DA053203, R01DA023089, and R01DA003721). Funders played no role in study design, data collection, analyses, interpretation of results, preparation of the manuscript, or decision to submit the manuscript. Content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agency. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. time, the association between objectively measured outlet availability and acceptability of use was replicated in the within-person analysis, such that parents had greater acceptability of parental cannabis use in years when they lived in neighborhoods with higher objective outlet availability. Conclusions Legal cannabis retail stores are increasingly common within neighborhoods. Prevention programming to support families residing in neighborhoods with greater outlet availability may reduce permissive cannabis norms and use among parents, which can have strong implications for youth substance use prevention and positive youth development. Introduction Current evidence shows that more parents are using cannabis now that it is legal, with prevalence and frequency of use higher among parents residing in legalized states than those without legalization [1–3]. Norms and attitudes surrounding cannabis among parents have also changed due to legalization, with research suggesting increasing acceptability of use and lower perceived harm [1,2,4]. The implications of these trends are concerning due to decades of research highlighting the risk parental cannabis use poses for families and the important role parents play in modeling behaviors and norms for youth’s substance use, even in the absence of parental use [5–8]. Prior research suggests that laws permitting cannabis sales are more strongly associated with adult cannabis use than the simple enactment of legalization [9,10], yet ways in which post-legalization increases in the availability of cannabis stores relate to parents’ cannabis use, norms, and perceived harm are understudied. Existing studies suggest that greater cannabis outlet availability in one’s residential neighborhood is associated with higher prevalence and frequency of cannabis use among adults in general; however, longitudinal studies examining parental cannabis use behaviors and norms are rare [11–15]. Availability theory purports that greater physical availability of a product, such as a higher number of retail outlets, leads to greater sales and consumption of a product [16]. Greater availability of cannabis retail stores may affect cannabis consumption levels by reducing travel distance/ time to obtain products and by offering consumers a greater diversity of products at lower prices [17,18]. Additionally, social cognitive theory suggest that presence of retail outlets may alter other environmental factors, including advertising, access, and the promotion of more permissive norms that can alter cannabis use behaviors [19]. Living near more medical cannabis outlets has been associated with more positive expectancies of cannabis use [e.g., helps with relaxation, more fun; [20], which are then associated with prevalence and frequency of use among adults [21–23]. However, much of the current research examining the effects of cannabis retail outlets has been cross-sectional [15]. Longitudinal studies with repeated assessments of neighborhood retail environments and cannabis use behaviors could allow testing of PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0348182 May 27, 2026 2 / 12 whether changes in local retail outlet availability are associated with changes in individ (...truncated)