Cannabis Health News
The change in law to permit the prescribing of cannabis for medicinal purposes has had little impact on recreational use, according to a new study.
In November 2018 cannabis was rescheduled to allow it to be prescribed for medicinal purposes in the UK, but until now there has been little research on the impact this has had on recreational use.
In an attempt to shine some light on this a team of researchers explored whether people’s attitudes towards cannabis, and their perception of the risks associated with recreational use, changed after the rescheduling.
The study, published in the journal Drug Science, Policy and Law, analysed data taken from an online survey investigating drug use and nightlife behaviours in just under 2,500 participants aged between 18-34.
Respondents had to be a resident of the UK and have attended at least six electronic music events in the 12 months leading up to March 2020.
Just over half of the participants identified as male and the majority were either students or in full-time employment. Drug use in the 12-month period was high, with over 70% indicating that they had used cannabis.
Lack of awareness of medicinal cannabis
Among the sample, awareness of the legality of medicinal cannabis was relatively low. While 90% believed cannabis to be a safe and effective medication for treating some conditions, only half (53%) were aware of the law change.
“This is potentially lower than might be expected and may indicate that a considerable proportion of people in the UK may be unaware of this policy change,” the authors state.
This has been shown through a number of other private surveys on attitudes among the general public, with findings showing over half the population is either unaware or unsure about the legal status of medicinal cannabis.
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Legalising medicinal cannabis has little impact on recreational use, finds UK study
Abstract
Background
Cannabis was rescheduled in the UK in November 2018 so that it can now be prescribed as a treatment for certain medical conditions. It is not yet known whether this has had an impact on peoples’ perception of its risk or on their recreational use of cannabis.
Methods
This study used data from longitudinal and cross-sectional components of an online survey investigating drug use and nightlife behaviours, comparing data before and after rescheduling of cannabis in November 2018. Participants’ awareness of the change in policy and its impact on cannabis use were assessed for participants in both the cross-sectional and longitudinal arms. The perception of the risk of recreational cannabis use, past 12-month use and use frequency were assessed pre- and post-policy change among the longitudinal sample.
Results
414 longitudinal (57.3% response rate) and 2001 cross-sectional participants completed the online survey, resulting in a total sample size of 2415. Just over half the sample (53.5%) were aware of the change in policy to allow for the medical provision of cannabis, with almost 90% saying this would have no impact on their recreational and approximately 80% no impact on their medical use of cannabis, irrespective of prior awareness. No significant differences were found with respect to risk perception, past 12-month cannabis use, or use frequency pre- and post-policy change among the longitudinal sample.
Conclusions
The change in UK policy to allow for the medical provision of cannabis for some conditions had a limited impact on intentions to use cannabis, and was not associated with longitudinal changes in risk perception or temporal use patterns.
Introduction
On 1 November 2018, cannabis was rescheduled in the UK to allow for its provision as a treatment for certain medical conditions (
Freeman et al., 2019;
Schlag et al., 2020), and public interest in its therapeutic benefits has rapidly expanded in the past two decades (
Schlag et al., 2020). After alcohol, cannabis is the most widely used recreational drug in the UK. Among adults aged 15 to 64, 29.0% are estimated to have used in their lifetime, with 13.4% of young adults (aged 15 to 34) having used in the past 12 months (
EMCDDA, 2021). While the demand for cannabis-based medications in the UK are thought to vastly outweigh current prescription rates (
Sakal et al., 2021), little is known about the impact of this policy change on attitudes towards and patterns of recreational use.
Some evidence from the United States suggests that the perception of the risk of cannabis use reduced following the introduction of medical cannabis in some states. For example, in Colorado the proportions of adolescents and young adults assigning ‘great risk’ to regular cannabis use dropped significantly following the introduction of medical cannabis (
Schuermeyer et al., 2014).
However, it is less clear whether the introduction of medical cannabis laws has been associated with an increase in recreational use. A meta-analysis of studies comparing adolescent use pre- and post-medical cannabis introduction to contemporaneous use in states without medical cannabis laws found no evidence of an association (
Sarvet et al., 2018), while some studies have found an increase in recreational use among young adults following medical cannabis introduction (
Martins et al., 2016). Given the relatively high rates of recreational cannabis in the UK, an investigation into the potential impact of medical cannabis legislation on risk perception and recreational use would be extremely timely.
The Electronic Music Scene Survey (EMSS) was a study investigating drug use and nightlife behaviours in five European countries (
Feltmann et al., 2021;
Grabski et al., In press;
Waldron et al., 2020). Elevated rates of drug use in comparison with the general population have long been observed in the nightlife scene, thus such samples can be highly informative for monitoring developing attitudes and patterns of use (
Morley et al., 2015). Indeed, high rates in past 12-month cannabis use were observed in the EMSS sample (
Feltmann et al., 2021;
Waldron et al., 2020), suggesting it might be a relevant population within which to examine changes following the introduction of medical cannabis.
As such, this study used data from the EMSS-UK, a UK-based extension to the EMSS, in order to: i) assess the awareness of the change in policy to allow for the medical provision of cannabis in the UK and its likely impact on cannabis use; ii) examine differences in the perception of the risk of recreational cannabis pre- and post-medical cannabis policy change; iii) investigate changes in past 12-month cannabis use and use frequency pre- and post-policy change.
