The study’s strength is that it provides a novel and timely snapshot of practices that may influence cannabis consumption in a rapidly evolving context. Surveillance of cannabis websites can complement and help to explain findings of the behavioral studies reporting increased cannabis use. This aspect of cannabis marketing may be more agile and difficult to capture with traditional marketing surveillance; the COVID-19 announcements appeared soon after lockdowns. By October 2021, all of these announcements had disappeared from all but one of the dispensary websites . This study captured a unique transient marketing activity, suggesting that during future societal events or stressors that might impact cannabis consumption, rapid surveillance of cannabis dispensary websites is warranted. The study has several limitations: it has a small sample size, this cross-sectional analysis of dispensary websites does not represent other types of cannabis websites or places without legal cannabis, and it addresses only dispensary COVID-19 announcements, not consumer behavior. This study adds perspectives on new COVID-19 related content to prior analyses of cannabis advertising, which also found retailers positioning themselves as healthcare providers. While we did not find explicit claims that cannabis could treat COVID-19, some announcements suggested ways to use cannabis to avoid infection, 4×4 grow tray or suggested cannabis products to use if experiencing anxiety; these implicit connections between cannabis and health are consistent with prior studies finding cannabis dispensary health benefit claims.
This analysis was limited only to the COVID-19 announcements; a subsequent analysis of the full website content found that anxiety was the most common mental health claim, present on 80% of websites in this sample. This limited analysis of the COVID-19 announcements from a single time point early in the pandemic likely underestimates the potential influence dispensary marketing could have on cannabis consumption. While COVID-19 announcements had largely disappeared from dispensary websites by October 2021, an informal review of the dispensary websites included in this analysis in October 2021 found that one featured a blog post on the topic, “Can marijuana cure coronavirus?” and several websites featured blog posts about using cannabis for anxiety, a topic indirectly relevant to the stress of the ongoing pandemic. While this study does not address consumer behavior, another study found in states where cannabis is legally sold, people with mood or anxiety disorders were more likely to use cannabis to self medicate. The marketing tactics we observed to maintain cannabis availability and align with health authorities might contribute to increased cannabis use, particularly since other studies show stress and decreased access to medical services19 were associated with the pandemic.This study demonstrates that cannabis dispensary websites are a timely source of data on industry responses to rapidly changing events and public health policies that may impact cannabis consumption.
The study identified two tactics in the COVID-19 announcements preserved which might contribute to increased cannabis consumption: preserving ready access to cannabis as an essential service, and reinforcing perceptions of cannabis as a medicine and dispensaries as health services. While use of online ordering and delivery services has been documented in prior analyses of cannabis websites15 we found these services became nearly universal after stay-at-home orders. The increase in home delivery of cannabis and other intoxicants that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic may persist, posing new challenges for surveillance research. Future studies should address the impact of cannabis marketing and messaging on consumer cannabis consumption and health-care seeking behavior during stressful events.The ancient hexactinellid sponges are associated with the Ediacaran Period, and they are one of the basal metazoans . Despite great interest in the group, the natural history of the Hexactinellida is poorly known, and the life history is largely derived from inferences. The Antarctic hexactinellid fauna is well described; however, they are generally found at depths greater than 30 m, making it very difficult to study them in situ. Thus, life history patterns of recruitment, growth and reproduction are poorly understood for most hexactinellid sponges, although they have been thought to be very slow in comparison to the more common demosponges. Much of this characterization of low recruitment and growth rates of Antarctic sponges is based on early research at McMurdo Sound. Three species of hexactinellid sponges comprise the bulk of the benthic biomass: the relatively small Rossella antarctica is very common, reproduces by budding and exhibited growth during the study, while the massive, volcano-shaped hexactinellids, Anoxycalyx joubini and Rossella nuda/racovitzae, had no recruitment or growth.
Anoxycalyx joubini is the largest and most conspicuous sponge in the Antarctic and although it has been observed as much as 2 m in height , it has never been observed to settle or grow which has led to estimates of extreme longevity. Here we present observations of remarkable episodic recruitment and growth and apparently high mortality of the hexactinellid, A. joubini, in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. These observations call into question the validity of previously held generalizations, at least for this conspicuous species.The observations of recruitment and growth occurred on artificial, experimental structures located on each side of McMurdo Sound . The area around McMurdo Station is normally influenced by southerly currents bringing phytoplankton from a region north of Ross Island, which is often dominated by a large and productive polyna. Slow northerly currents sourced beneath the Barrier Ice bathe the Explorers Cove region of New Harbor. The currents at Explorers Cove advect very different and minimal plankton because the water mass has circulated under the Ross Ice Shelf. With the exception of a wooden gangplank dropped from a ship in 1960, all structures were purposefully placed in the 1960s and early 1970s. The gangplank is at a depth of 25–30 m located just north of Hut Point, McMurdo Station . During the 1970s, the gangplank and the surrounding area were subject to massive settlement of the demosponge, Homaxinella balfourensis; however, essentially all of these sponges were removed by anchor ice in the mid-1980s. Various cages in the vicinity of McMurdo Station were placed in 1967. Settling surfaces either supported off the substratum by iron and wood posts or suspended beneath floats as much as 30 m off the bottom were established along the Hut Point Peninsula from Cape Armitage to Cape Evans in 1974. Various types of settling substrates composed of PVC plates and pipes were suspended in the water column by floats at Explorers Cove in 1974–75. These floaters, or settling structures suspended by floats up to 20 m above the floor were at bottom depths of 24– 43 m . In addition, greenhouse racking platforms placed in the 1970s for experiments also served as habitat for recruitment and growth of sponges. This paper is based on regular observations from 1967 at Ross Island sites and from 1974 at Explorers Cove through the end of 1989. The Ross Island sites were re-visited in 1998, and all sites were re-visited in 2004. In 2004, photographs were taken of A. joubini that had settled on the gangplank and on Explorers Cove structures. Detailed sponge photographs were obtained in 2010 and one site was revisited and photographed in 2012. While the specific sites discussed in this paper were not visited between 1989 and 2004, no recruitment of the very conspicuous A. joubini was observed in the late 1990s on Ross Island. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that during the extensive diving by Kathy Conlan and others in that period, there would have been observations of some new sponges, had there been a strong recruitment event much prior to 1998.There was no sponge colonization on the gangplank in the 1960s, but in 1974–1978 there was virtually no anchor ice formation, facilitating heavy recruitment and settlement of the demosponge, H. balfourensis over the entire area.
Anchorice returned in the 1980s removing H. balfourensis, and by 1989 the gangplank was clean of sponges . From 1967 through 1989, there were no hexactinellid sponges on the gangplank, but sometime between 1989 and 2004, A. joubini settled and grew there. In 2010, 19 A. joubini were photographed on the gangplank, which together had an estimated mean biomass of 30 kg, with the largest sponge weighing over 76 kg . While several new A. joubini were observed on the bottom in the vicinity of McMurdo Station, only one other A. joubini had settled on an old predator exclusion cage at Cape Armitage . This sponge was observed to have grown almost 30% when the site was revisited in 2012, only two years later, demonstrating the potential of fast growth rates relative to the 1967 through 1989 period when no growth was observed. In Explorers Cove, no sponges were observed on settling surfaces from 1974 until 1989 when a few H. balfourensis were found on some floating surfaces and racks. In addition, one large floater that had been suspended about 15 m above the bottom in 1975 was observed to have two small hexactinellids, possibly A. joubini in 1989. In 2004 A. joubini were found on nearly all artificial substrates and by 2010, the racks and floats at Explorers Cove included individual sponges over 40 kg . It is important to note that the Explorers Cove data are underestimates of total sponges that have recruited to the floater and rack structures, because very large sponges observed in 2004 had fallen off their substrata by 2010. Massive sponges unbalanced and tipped one floater, dumping the sponges sometime before 2010 and several other floaters had simply sunk from the weight of the sponges. In all cases, piles of A. joubini spicules were found on the bottom where the sponges had landed. In addition, some of the very large sponges observed on racks had become large enough to push other sponges off the structure, again reducing the total estimate of recruited individuals and biomass to the structures over this time period . We do not know how many of these sponges either fell off their structures or sank their floater, nor do we know how they died; however, in a few cases sponges apparently were dislodged recently and appeared still alive but were infested with the amphipod, Seba antarctica and being consumed by Acodontaster conspicuous. While the exact cause of death is uncertain, it is clear that essentially all of them die after landing on the bottom. Even with many of the large sponges lost before we could measure them, the estimated mean sponge weight of A. joubini found on the floaters was over 13 kg and nearly 18 kg on the rack . We observed a high mortality of A. joubini. Nearly every sponge that fell from artificial substrates to the bottom after 2004 was deadn 2010– the exceptions were 2–3 sponges that were mostly dead and two sponges estimated to be 8 kg and 17 kg that had recently sunk a float. Moreover, all seven A. joubini observed in the 60 m basin area at Cape Armitage during 1967–68 were dead by 1977. We marked 35 large A. joubini at Cape Armitage, Hut Point and Explorers Cove in 1974 and 6 of these were dead by 1977 and none were alive in 2010. In addition, between 1974 and 1975 approximately 30 transect lines were laid at depths ranging from 20 to 60 m at Cape Armitage, Hut Point and Explorers Cove to follow long-term changes. When possible, transects were started near the large, conspicuous A. joubini to facilitate relocation. In total, transects included 15 large A. joubini at Cape Armitage and 10 at Explorers Cove, and none of these sponges were found alive in 2010. We do not know the ages of any of these sponges nor do we know precisely when they died, but all 67 of them died over 43 years. Finally, photographs taken in 2012 of the big sponges on the gangplank revealed that several appear to be dying, possibly from infestations of the amphipod S. antarctica, suggesting a much more rapid turnover of A. joubini than previously assumed. We have observed platelet ice formation on A. joubini at Cape Armitage and Hut Point in waters less then 33 m and anchor ice has been observed to kill sponge tissue of H. balfourensis, so it might also kill patches of A. joubini tissue.Anoxycalyx joubini is one of the dominant, structure-forming species in the McMurdo Sound region of Antarctica. Here we report a highly episodic, massive and Sound-wide recruitment event and subsequent growth spurt, which occurred mainly on artificial structures.