4. From standard drinks to the cannabis toolkit

One of the major challenges for the progress of Addiction Science is the development of reliable measurement tools. This is of major importance when it comes to measuring the quantity and frequency of the use of drugs with very diverse concentrations, degrees of purity and patterns of use.

When a drug is used by a significant percentage of the population, there is a need, from a public health perspective, to set evidence-based guidance concerning risky use, which provides users with reliable information and sets guidelines for professionals to intervene.

The move of cannabis products from an illicit to a regulated market is creating the need to standardize simple and reliable measurement tools, as happened in the alcohol field during the previous century.

In this session we will review the development of tools that measure alcohol consumption, with a special focus on standard drinks; highlighting successes and pitfalls, strengths and weaknesses, with the idea that the lessons learnt during this long and fruitful process can be beneficial in the development of the tools needed to advance cannabis research.