Public interest in Cannabis during election season: a Google Trends analysis
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(2020) 2:31
BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT
Journal of Cannabis Research
Open Access
Public interest in Cannabis during election season: a Google Trends analysis Trevor Torgerson* , Will Roberts, Drew Lester, Jam Khojasteh and Matt Vassar
Abstract Introduction: Given that 72% of internet users seek out health information using an internet search engine (Google being the most popular); we sought to investigate the public internet search interest in cannabis as a health topic when cannabis legislation appeared on state ballots and during presidential elections. Materials and methods: We searched Google Trends for “cannabis” as a health topic. Google Trends data were extracted during the time period of May 1, 2008 to May 1, 2019 for the United States (US) and select states (18) within the US including: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington when cannabis was on the ballot. These state elections were referenda, not legislative votes. We then compared the internet search interest for cannabis before and after each election. To evaluate whether any associations with changes in the volume of cannabis internet searches were specific to the cannabis topic, or also occurred with other topics of general interest during an election year, the authors ran additional analyses of previously popular debated policies during Presidential Elections that may act as control topics. These policies included Education, Gun Control, Climate Change, Global Warming, and Abortion. We used the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) algorithm to forecast expected relative internet search interests for the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections. Individual variables were compared using a linear regression analysis for the beta coefficients performed in Stata Version 15.1 (StataCorp). Results: Public internet search interest for “cannabis” increased during the voting month above the previous mean internet search interest for all 18 bills. For the US, observed internet search interest during each Presidential Election was 26.9% [95% CI, 18.4–35.4%] greater than expected in 2012 and 29.8% [95% CI, 20.8–38.8%] greater than expected in 2016. In 2016, significant state-level findings included an increase in relative internet search rates for cannabis in states with higher usage rates of cannabis in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.4 (2.8–4.0)) and past month illicit drug use except cannabis rates (Coeff (95% CI), 17.4 (9.8–25.0)). Relative internet search rates for cannabis from 2008 to 2019 were also associated with increased cannabis usage in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.1 (2.5–3.7)). States with higher access to legal cannabis were associated with higher relative internet search volumes for cannabis (Coeff (95% CI), 0.31 (0.15–0.46)). Of the five additional policies that were searched as topics, only two showed an increase in internet search interest during each Presidential Election. Climate Change i
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