How can cannabis policy goals inform the development of evaluation indicators?

Background
The global landscape of non-medical cannabis supply regulation is evolving rapidly in the Americas, Europe and various other jurisdictions. Cannabis policy changes are driven by a particular set of goals or objectives, that can vary from revenue generation to protecting individual rights or public health objectives. However, often these goals are not clearly or explicitly articulated in policy discussions and indicators that can help evaluate whether these goals are reached can vary and are to some extent under-developed.

Methods
RAND Europe and the Trimbos Institute have mapped international de jure cannabis supply regulations that emerged in the past 10 years and focused in-depth on six jurisdictions (Uruguay, California, Vermont, Quebec, Germany and Switzerland) to study policy change processes, and goals driving those, the governance of regulatory frameworks, and the features of the different cannabis supply models introduced by those. Moreover, interviews were held with 20 stakeholders in different jurisdictions.
The first goal of this session is to present the explicit and implicit goals of the changes in cannabis policy in the six jurisdictions of focus, based on research conducted by the team. Secondly, we will focus on the interplay between policy goals and the theory/logic models underlying those - and how, in turn, goals and theory are translated into indicators for evaluation. It will be argued that integrating those goals into a logic model (“What works for whom in what circumstances, in what respects, and how?”) could aid in defining and selecting relevant indicators to monitor and evaluate whether the policy is successful. To facilitate discussion among workshop participants the team will present a ‘Theory of Change’-analysis of the ongoing Controlled Cannabis Supply Chain Experiment in the Netherlands.  

In addition, at European level, the EUDA co-ordinates a technical working group with representatives from different European countries, whose goal it is to define and establish a core set of indicators to monitor and evaluate these new cannabis policies. We will also draw on insights from those efforts to engage in discussion with session participants. In doing so, we will reflect on implications for the design of evaluations in this area.

Results and conclusions
Understanding the goals of cannabis policies is not only relevant to learn about the rationale for these changes, but will also be important to be able to measure the effects of these new policies. This interactive workshop aims to empower participants with the skills and knowledge needed to distill key lessons from international developments around policy goals and evaluation of those goals.

This workshop will be relevant for policymakers, researchers and representatives from European focal points or other national drug institutes.