Borodovsky JT, Struble CA, Habib MI, et al. Exploring survey methods for measuring consumption quantities of cannabis flower and concentrate products. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 2023;49(6):733-745. doi:10.1080/00952990.2023.2246635
This study examined cannabis users preferred quantity units as reliable measures of milligrams of THC (mgTHC). The authors developed an online survey to assess participants self-reported daily cannabis use for the previous 7-days (n = 2,381). The survey was designed to determine if there were group differences between estimated mgTHC based on preferred quantity units and to assess the feasibility of two strategies for determining individual grams-per-hit ratios (GPHRs). All participants reported whether they preferred reporting their daily use as the “number of hits/puffs/tokes” or “number of grams” per day. All participants then reported their daily use for the past week in both hits and grams as well as the %THC of their product. All hits and grams mgTHC estimates were calculated using the universal GPHRs, as well as novel individualized GPHRs, gathered using a higher-burden (two-item) and lower-burden (one-item) approach. Both approaches required participants to use guided instructions in the survey to provide an individualized measure of their grams and hits per day (two-item) or hits needed to finish 0.5 grams (one-item). Participants who preferred to report their daily use in grams consumed larger quantities of cannabis and had higher mgTHC estimates per day compared to users who preferred to report their daily use in hits (all p < 0.05). In addition, the universal GPHR provided less accurate mgTHC estimates than the individualized GPHRs, where individualized GPHRs were more than 50% larger or smaller than the universal ratios. Comparison between the higher and lower-burden approaches revealed similar results for individual participants, indicating the potential benefit of the one-item measure. Future research should aim to confirm the utility of the single-item individualized GPHR approach.