01
Index retailers
Build jurisdiction-specific lists of online, offline, and hybrid retailers.
UC San Diego · Regulatory science
Public health research for a marketplace that moved online.
We study how tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and other psychoactive products are marketed and sold through digital environments.
How we work
From search results to real-world evidence.
Our studies follow the path a consumer takes online, then test the systems intended to protect them.
02
Review websites
Analyze marketed products, sales practices, and evidence relevant to regulators.
03
Audit purchases
Test age verification, shipping, taxes, licensing, and product restrictions.
Featured finding · JAMA
Online vaping retailers rarely verified age when orders arrived.
In a real-world purchase audit, only 1.0% of deliveries involved an ID scan, 78.1% involved no interaction with delivery personnel, and most completed deliveries arrived through USPS.
Read the JAMA study