Aperture Research is founded by Steven Davenport

Dr. Steven Davenport has been practicing as a cannabis market and regulatory analyst since 2012. Dr. Davenport is trained as a policy-oriented data scientist and regulatory consultant, holding a PhD in Policy Analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, a Master’s of Science Degree in Public Policy and Management (Data Analytics) from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BA in International Development (public policy minor) from UCLA. Previously, he has served as assistant policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and BOTEC’s managing director.  He is founder and CEO of Aperture Research and continues to serve as an advisor to BOTEC Analysis.

Dr. Davenport’s academic research focuses on the study of licit and illicit marijuana markets, largely in the United States, specializing in the quantitative analysis of available market-related data (e.g., relating to licensees, products, prices) and patterns of marijuana use. His dissertation  includes three cannabis-related papers: 1) the evolution of the marijuana market during a decade of liberalization  (2001-2013), drawing on federal survey data; 2) product variety, content, and trends in THC-based price declines in Washington, drawing on the State’s seed-to-sale traceability dataset; 3) changing rates of self-reported cannabis abuse or dependence among heavy users.

Dr. Davenport has published in Addiction, International Journal of Drug Policy, Journal of Drug Issues, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, and the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, on topics including nationwide trends in marijuana use and markets; analysis of the adult use marijuana market in Washington State; and review of medical marijuana licensing regimes in Jamaica. He has served as reviewer for numerous journals related to drug policy, including Addiction, American Journal of Public Health, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, International Journal of Drug Policy, and Journal of Drug Issues; as a member of conference planning committees for the BOTEC-NYU Cannabis Summit and the 2019 North American Cannabis Summit; and as a co-investigator on two federally funded NIDA and NIH studies studying cannabis use, supply, and demand.

His writing has also appeared in the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime report “World Drug Report 2017” and the National Academy of Science’s “Health Effects of Marijuana and Cannabis-Derived Products” (2017). His work has been featured in popular outlets including New York Post, VICE, Vox, and Washington Post.

Across seven years of experience consulting for governments studying or making decisions about marijuana policy, Dr. Davenport has assisted a number of government bodies. Recently, Dr. Davenport authored estimates for the size of the nation’s marijuana markets (2006-2016) for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), as an assistant policy researcher at the RAND Corporation.

Dr. Davenport has provided research and advisement to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) across four separate engagements since 2013. Dr. Davenport served as project manager for BOTEC Analysis (BOTEC), selected to advise the agency regarding how to regulate and administer the nation’s first legal adult use cannabis market. BOTEC provided research on a wide range of topics, including high-level principles in drug policy analysis and marijuana market dynamics, and also informing practical decisions such as how to allocate a limited number of retail licenses and how to set a retail excise tax equivalent to the de facto rate of the “25/25/25” three-tiered tax scheme.

Through BOTEC, Dr. Davenport has been engaged by the LCB on three other occasions. In 2015, he developed models to estimate the size of Washington’s medical marijuana market, informing policy that merged the State’s medical marijuana system into the regulated market. In 2018, Dr. Davenport  contributed to two separate projects: 1) studying business conditions affecting producer-processor licensees, informed by interviews held in Eastern Washington, with extensive detail about causes and market effects of the rapid price declines observed in Washington in fall 2017; 2) a broad analysis of the State’s traceability data, including product sales volumes, potency levels, and product flow. In October 2019, he completed his most recent engagement with the Liquor and Cannabis Board, an analysis of the feasibility potency-based tax for regulated cannabis.

When the nation was planning how to regulate medical marijuana, Dr. Davenport managed BOTEC’s advisory for Jamaica’s Cannabis Licensing Authority, leading to the publication of A Regulated Cannabis Market for Jamaica. Research involved extensive interviews with stakeholders across government, civil, and private sectors; modeling of licit and illicit markets; and policy analysis of regulatory options. Other projects include providing regulatory analysis, market estimates, expert testimony, and market forecasts for clients such as Health Canada (Canada’s national health agency) and a federally recognized Indian Tribe.