RAND Retracts Marijuana Report
The RAND Corp. officially retracted its study published in September that argued an increase in crime to the closing of marijuana dispensaries around Los Angeles Monday. The study, "Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and Crime", failed to include a crime report by the California Police Chiefs Association.
"Dispensaries do impact crime rates and quailty of life issues in our neighborhoods, as our '2009 White Paper on Marijuana Dispensaries' showed," Chief David L. Maggard Jr., president of the California Police Chiefs Assocation, said. "Quality of life and crime problems are often common to areas where dispensaries are located. As leaders responsible for providing law enforcement services to 78% of California, we have a keen perspective on this issue."
RAND Vice President of Infrastructure, Safety and Environment Debra Knopman said the retraction was a rare failure of the company's peer review system.
"We take our commitment to quality and objectivity seriously so we have retracted the study in order to correct it," Knopman said.
Police chiefs praised RAND for taking back the report Monday.
"We appreciate RAND's acknowledgement that the data and research were insufficient to reach the conclusions it did and agree with their decision to retract the paper," Maggard said.
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