Lessons Learned in Developing a Behavioral Economic Measure of Cannabis Use Using a Predominantly White Sample.

This article focuses on the development and evaluation of revised versions of the Marijuana Purchase Task (MPT), a behavioral economic measure used to assess cannabis demand and risk for hazardous use. The study introduced two novel MPT adaptations—a revised dispensary form (MPT-DF) and a tailored dispensary form (MPT-DFT)—that incorporate multiple cannabis consumption methods, standardized THC units, typical product quality, and a longer purchasing timeframe to better reflect contemporary cannabis use patterns. Conducted with a predominantly White sample recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, the study found that while the tailored MPT showed improved participant satisfaction and some evidence of concurrent validity, both dispensary forms faced challenges such as increased participant burden, inattentive responding, and limited variability in certain demand indices due to price ceiling effects. The authors recommend future research to optimize task length, increase maximum price points, enhance ecological validity through visual aids and clearer instructions, and to include more diverse samples to improve generalizability.