Europe’s first adult-use cannabis pilot programme, the Weed Care study, launched in Basel, Switzerland, in January 2023, to examine how introducing a legal supply of cannabis could affect consumption and mental health among participants.
The pilot, a collaboration between the Addiction Department of the Department of Health of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, the University of Basel, the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (UPK) and Psychiatric Services Aargau, aims to help inform responsible and evidence-based cannabis regulations for the country.
In the first academic publication from study, researchers have been able to make a direct comparison between the effects of a legal cannabis supply, versus illegal procurement, using two randomised groups.
Out of approximately 370 participants, half were able to buy legal cannabis in one of the nine participating pharmacies and were offered counselling in the process. As a control group, the other half continued to use illegally-sourced cannabis.
The participants reported on their consumption and their mental state via questionnaires at regular intervals.
With previous insights based on purely observational studies, Dr Lavinia Baltes-Flückiger, deputy head of the study at the Psychiatric Services Aargau and lead author, said this is the first controlled, randomised study of its kind.
Writing in the scientific journal Addiction, the research team reports a slight decrease in problematic consumption in the group with legal access to cannabis. [Consumption is considered problematic if it causes or exacerbates health, social or psychological difficulties – even without dependency in the classic sense.]
In particular, a more substantial positive effect through legal access was seen in people who used other drugs in addition to cannabis.
“In this subgroup, problematic cannabis use experienced a significant drop,” says Baltes-Flückiger.
POUR CONTINUER À LIRE: Cannabis Health
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