Council Bluffs- Prevention Means Progress staff were inspired by a presentation they saw at the National Prevention Network Conference in 2019 about doing environmental scans before and after recreational marijuana was legalized in California. Given that Iowa has strict laws on the placement of medical CBD shops and no recreational marijuana, PMP was interested in adopting this approach around retail CBD shops. In the case that Iowa were to ever relax its laws around recreational marijuana, the coalition wanted to have a baseline to show how exposure and accessibility to youth should be minimized. Working with their DFC grant dollars and skilled program evaluator, Lorelle Mueting and Tiffani Pinkerton implemented PHASE I of the environmental scan: Exposure. Heading into Council Bluffs on a weekday morning, Mueting and Pinkerton stood across the street from a high school. With a fresh set of eyes, they became overwhelmed with the amount of signs, advertisements, and products they could see-not only for CBD, but also for alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets. A car covered in Budweiser slogans sat in a grocery store parking lot less than a block away while a Bud Light semi-truck unloaded its delivery into the adjacent beer store.

Continuing on foot, across the street from the school and just a few blocks down, they took pictures of a convenience store with signs for cigarettes, E-vapes, Juul pods, (groceries), beer, and lottery tickets next to an adjoining business that had pictures of minions in the window. ("Despicable" me is right!)

Unfortunately, this was not the last store of its kind that these prevention professionals documented that day. They recorded one CBD and vape shop, liquor store, and lottery outlet after another-all within walking distance of a school, daycare, and substance use treatment facility. Since that day, the coalition staff moved onto PHASE II, which documented the accessibility of these products. Their evaluator helped "map out" the businesses geographic proximities to schools, childcare centers, treatment facilities, and of course-to one another. As AC4C member Peter Komendowski pointed out, exposing the results of this environmental scan may be as embarrassing as it is eye-opening to lawmakers. Therefore, PMP plans to invite local senators and/or city council members to join them on their next expedition, which will include going inside these shops and seeing how business is conducted on the inside. They will continue to work with their evaluator to make a toolkit/checklist that can be utilized in other counties that the coalition serves. In the meantime, AC4C has appreciated them sharing the in's and out's of this project.