A doctoral research project is conducting an online study through Humboldt University of Berlin and is seeking participants to research the subjective effects of cannabis in everyday life. The research team is calling for cannabis consumers who do not regularly use other substances or medications to participate.

“This study is an online survey. We are interested in your personal perceptions of the subjective effects of cannabis on various aspects of daily life, relationships, and experiences. We ask for your personal assessments and (phenomenological-qualitative) experiences.” the researchers state on their website, which is also where consumers can sign up (translated from German to English). “By participating in this study, you are making an important contribution to psychological research. The goal is to gain a better understanding of possible connections in order to support an evidence-based discussion about the effects of cannabis.”

“Participation in the main study will take approximately 20–30 minutes . You can complete the entire study conveniently from home. However, you must first check whether you meet the participation requirements. This check is also done online and takes about 3 minutes.” the website also states. “Upon successful completion of the main study, you can receive up to €8.00 as compensation. Of course, you can also participate simply to support research on this topic.”

This type of cannabis research is very important because it allows consumers to share their real-world experiences using cannabis. A considerable amount of misinformation is often spread about cannabis consumers, both in media and politics, and academic researchers need to gather accurate, meaningful information directly from consumers to provide balance to ongoing societal discussions and public policy evaluations.

Below is the criteria to become a participant in the Humboldt University of Berlin study:

• Understand German well and to be able to express oneself well (in writing) in German, since the questions, answer formats, and texts are in German
• Be at least 18 years old
• Currently consuming cannabis (researchers are explicitly looking for cannabis users with very different consumption patterns)
• Do not regularly consume any substances other than cannabis (at least monthly in the last 12 months), this also includes medications (exception: nicotine, alcohol in small amounts)
• You should have approximately 30 minutes to work through the study in full-screen mode, concentrating throughout
• Have a sufficiently stable internet connection and access to a functioning device that is not a smartphone, e.g. a tablet / PC / laptop, in order to fill out the questionnaire (this is mainly due to layout and readability)

“Your participation in the study is pseudonymized, meaning that at the beginning you create a personal participant code, and your data is then processed at an anonymized group level . We do not store IP addresses. We ask you for some personal information, such as age and gender – however, we only use this data aggregated at the group level, never at an individual level that would allow identification of you.” the researchers state about privacy.

“Only direct project staff from the Chair of Social and Organizational Psychology at Humboldt University of Berlin have access to the raw data; no third parties ever have access.” they added.