Researchers Study Reddit for Clues About Pot in the Real World
In an attempt to better understand how marijuana is consumed in the real world, researchers from five universities analyzed thousands posts from a Reddit community dedicated to “online community-driven efforts to create a measurement convention for relating shared experiences of cannabis consumption.” Needless to say, they learned some interesting things.
In a nutshell, researchers discovered that user reports of the marijuana experience are heavily influenced by a number of factors including both social setting and plant potency. For example, people are more likely to report feeling a more intense high when consuming marijuana during in-person social gatherings as compared to online meetings.
The Real World and the Lab
As a third-party observer who uses neither recreational nor medical cannabis, the most fascinating aspect of the research is the purported differences between real-world and lab results. What people report in the lab seems to differ significantly from what they report in real-world settings. This suggests to me that some of what we think we know about cannabis consumption may not be entirely accurate, especially ideas predicated on lab studies.
How ‘real-world’ was the study? It was pretty extensive. Researchers accumulated and analyzed more than 328,800 Reddit posts created between 2010 and 2018. They focused on posts that included references to a community-driven numbering system that indicates subjective highness among posters.
The numbering system operates on a scale of 0-10, where 0 is sober and 10 is “in space.” Reddit contributors describe how high they felt under a particular set of circumstances. One poster cited in the research suggested that the poster reached a 9 after smoking with his roommate.
Psychological Sets and Environmental Settings
Researchers observed that the most significant posts included information about psychological sets and environmental settings. They considered psychological sets as comments relating to marijuana affects and cognition. Obviously, environmental settings include things like where cannabis was consumed, its potency, and the current social setting.
All the researchers’ findings are extremely difficult to quantify in a single post of this nature. For me, the big takeaway is knowing that the community has voluntarily created a rating system to describe how high cannabis makes them feel. They apply the rating system, accounting for circumstances, in hopes of helping others get the most from the cannabis experience.
Use in a Medical Setting
These particular researchers were not focused exclusively on recreational or medical consumption. They simply read posts from users who were reporting their own experiences. Still, their research leads to an intriguing question: could a similar rating system be developed for the medical cannabis community exclusively?
Out in Utah, the operators of the Zion Medicinal medical cannabis dispensary encourage their Cedar City and St. George customers to track their cannabis consumption daily. They encourage customers to bring the information they record when they visit the pharmacy for the next purchase. Why? Because an on-site pharmacist can use that information to make better recommendations to the patient.
In its current state, medical cannabis represents a means of self-medicating in the absence of legitimate cannabis prescriptions. But patience can certainly benefit from qualified pharmacist advice. My thinking is that such advice could be enhanced by a rating system that pinpoints how a particular cannabis product made a patient feel.
Remember that the Reddit research was based on posts from 2010 to 2018. They seem to indicate that a community has perfected its numbering system. Perhaps it is time to adopt that system for legitimate medical cannabis use. It could help both patients and medical cannabis pharmacists alike. I do not see a downside here.
