TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2019//
TI  - Who consumes most of the cannabis in Canada? Profiles of cannabis consumption by quantity
JO  - Drug and alcohol dependence
A1  - Callaghan, Russell C.
A1  - Sanches, Marcos
A1  - Benny, Claire
A1  - Stockwell, Tim
A1  - Sherk, Adam
A1  - Kish, Stephen
SP  - e107587
EP  - e107587
VL  - 205
IS  - 
N2  - AIM: To establish whether the population-level pattern of cannabis use by quantity is similar to the distributions previously reported for alcohol, in which a small subset of drinkers accounts for a majority of total population alcohol consumption. <br><br>METHOD: The current study pooled Waves 1-3 of the 2018 National Cannabis Survey (n = 18,900; 2584 past-three-month cannabis users), a set of stratified, population-based surveys designed to assess cannabis consumption and related behaviors in Canada. Each survey systematically measured self-reported cannabis consumption by quantity across seven of the major cannabis-product types. In order to enable the conversion of self-reported consumption of non-flower cannabis products into a standard joint equivalent (SJE: equal to 0.5 g of dried cannabis), we created conversion metrics for physical production equivalencies across cannabis products. <br><br>RESULTS: Similar to the findings in the alcohol literature, study results show that cannabis consumption is highly concentrated in a small subset of users: the upper 10% of cannabis users accounted for approximately two-thirds of all cannabis consumed in the country. Males reported consuming more cannabis by volume than females (approximately 60% versus 40%), with young males (15-34 years old) being disproportionately represented in the heaviest-using subgroups. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Most of the cannabis used in Canada is consumed by a relatively small population of very heavy cannabis users. Future research should attempt to identify the characteristics of the heaviest-using groups, as well as how population-level cannabis consumption patterns relate to the calculus of cannabis-related harms in society.<br><br>Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0376-8716
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.107587
ID  - ref1
ER  -