To fill the legal cannabis knowledge gap, a research project from Switzerland called Weed Care is underway. It started in September 2022 and aims to finish in March 2025.
Public health professionals are looking for complete information regarding legalisation of cannabis for recreational use continues. We can give such an example from Germany which looked at other countries’ experience.
The study seeks to compare the health impacts of authorised cannabis sales. Specifically, project from Switzerland examines how the access to cannabis sales in Basel-Stadt pharmacies influences participants’ consumption patterns and health. Pure Holding is a company which provides products for this study. On 30th of January the company started sales of their products for Weed Care project.
The overview of Weed Care project
A Weed Care study consists of 6-month trial and a 2-year observational phases. A total of 374 participants were randomly allocated to one of the groups. First, control group, represented the current black market and second, the experimental group, had access to cannabis legally in pharmacies. However, both groups of Switzerland ‘s project are given two years of legal cannabis access after six months.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health and the local ethics committee both gave their approval to the study’s design, ensuring that it complied with all applicable rules and regulations.
Why are the results going to be super important?
The study’s main goal was to determine whether restricted access to cannabis might decrease problematic cannabis use. The CUDIT-R scale was used by the researchers to assess the behaviours and issues connected to cannabis usage. The goal of the study was to identify a dependable change in mean CUDIT-R scores of two points or more after six months. The study seeks to offer reliable evidence on the effect of cannabis regulation on many health indicators by making use of a strong study design and a wide range of questionnaires.
Policymakers might view this type of regulation to be better than prohibition. Of course if the results show modified cannabis use patterns and health outcomes. Moreover, such a regulation strategy might result in long-term healthcare system cost reductions.
Additionally, the study may show little difference in health outcomes between the experimental and control groups. That can indicate that the assessed regulatory model is not less valuable to prohibition.
Overall, “Weed Care” is a significant step toward producing evidence-based data on the effects of legalising marijuana for recreational use. So far there are no updates from project managers nor from Pure Holding.