Aleksi Hupli
Dr. Aleksi Hupli defended his doctoral dissertation in sociology at the University of Tampere in 2021 which focused on cognitive enhancement drug use among students, microdosing psychedelics, and medical cannabis. Currently he works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Emerging Technologies Lab in Tampere University. Hupli’s post doc research focuses on self-medicative use of cannabis in Finland and he also coordinated one of the clinical sites in Finland´s first clinical trial investigating psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder.
Session
Policies regarding cannabis continue to develop worldwide as scientific research into benefits and harms for both therapeutic and recreational use becomes more detailed. Here we report results from a cross-sectional survey (N = 537) from Finland which aimed to identify factors associated with cannabis use for recreational versus medical purposes. Several demographic and cannabis related factors were used to predict medical cannabis use with logistic regression analysis. Medical cannabis use was associated with female gender, older age, lower education, using edible cannabis products such as oils, and using cannabis more frequently compared to recreational use. The study points towards important demographic, behavioural, and consumer factors differentiating recreational and therapeutic use of cannabis. These are relevant to consider when designing future studies as well as appropriate harm reduction and cannabis policy measures for the needs of different people who use cannabis and cannabinoids for multifactorial motives experiencing various effects. To contextualize these findings the presentation provides also the cultural setting and recent public debate related to drug policy in general and cannabis in particular in the Finnish context.