Switzerland has granted approval for a new five-year, 5000-participant adult-use cannabis pilot trial, marking the eighth since the groundbreaking project began in 2023.
Announced on June 16 by the Swiss Cannabis Research Association, CanLeg will take place in the Canton of St. Gallen, and will be the first pilot to test the home delivery of cannabis products to consumers.
It will also mark the second pilot project to be run by the organisation, having launched the country’s largest study so far, Cannabis Research Zürich, in 2024.
What will CanLeg study?
CanLeg will be conducted by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich and the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich, and led by economists Dr Andreas Beerli of ETH Zurich’s KOF Swiss Economic Institute and Professor Michel Maréchal of the University of Zurich’s Department of Economics.
Its core research aim will ask how the form of access to cannabis products impacts participants’ consumption habits, and will be constructed as a randomised control trial (RCT), as with around half of the current pilots.
The 5000 participants, now being recruited, will be split across three groups. Two will receive legal cannabis either through a pharmacy or home delivery, while a third control group will receive nothing.
The study is divided into two parts. The first, lasting around ten weeks, examines participants’ willingness to pay for different cannabis products and their perceptions of quality.
