Responses on hypothetical purchase tasks have been shown to be an accurate reflection of demand for the real substance , as well as a key determinant of patterns of use and misuse . For cannabis specifically, higher Amplitude is associated with increased cannabis use quantity and frequency, increased craving, and more symptoms of cannabis dependence.Increased demand for cannabis has also been linked to hazardous behaviors, such as driving after using cannabis . Efforts have been made to identify and better understand the etiological and maintaining factors of substance use disorders.However, currently there is little research on which mechanisms explain the relationship of greater demand for cannabis with its use and associated problems One potentially relevant factor that may account for the relationship between cannabis demand and outcomes is specific motives for use. Previous research has indicated that for other substances like alcohol, substance demand and specific motives for use are both implicated in consumption and related problems . Those with elevated demand may be more likely to use cannabis for specific reasons or under particular circumstances. Understanding the specific motives for substance use can shed light on when and how much someone is likely to use as well as the potential consequences of their use . Motives for cannabis use generally vary along two dimensions: valence  and source of reinforcement . The internal motives of coping and mood enhancement appear to be especially related to negative outcomes, showing associations with worse mental health functioning, greater quantities of cannabis use, and more cannabis-related problems . Research with alcohol demand has indicated that the demand indices of intensity  and Omax  are positively related with alcohol use and problems, and this relationship is mediated by elevated motives of enhancement and coping . Additionally, a study among veterans demonstrated that those with a high valuation of alcohol were more likely to use alcohol for coping and enhancement motives, grow tent indoor which in turn predicted more alcohol-related consequences .

Enhancement and coping motives for use are relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, as individuals with higher levels of demand may be at higher risk of escalating substance use to alleviate the elevated levels of boredom or negative affect. Previous meta-analytic research has demonstrated this contextual link, with alcohol demand indices showing significant increases following stress- or negative affectinducing paradigms . The extant literature suggests that motivations to use play a mediational role between elevated substance demand and problems, but comparable mechanistic research has yet to be done on the effects of cannabis demand on cannabis use patterns. This is an especially important area to explore as we see increased levels of cannabis use as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The current study is the first to our knowledge to investigate internal cannabis use motives as a potential mediating factor between cannabis demand pre-declaration of COVID-19 emergency measures and cannabis use patterns and problems after the implementation of COVID-19 emergency measures in Canada. To do this, we used a crowdsourcing platform  to examine how pre-existing levels of cannabis demand related to changes in cannabis use and problems during the first 30 days of the COVID-19 state of emergency. Then, we examined the mediating role of internal motives . We hypothesized that higher levels of cannabis demand pre-COVID-19 may lead to greater coping or enhancement motives to use cannabis during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated emergency measures. Further, we hypothesized that this mechanism may lead to increased cannabis use and/or problems after the enactment of COVID-19 emergency measures. Participants for the study were recruited through Prolific. Prolific is an online recruiting platform where individuals are able to access and complete a host of surveys and studies run by researchers.

Prolific ensures the application of proper recruitment standards and informing participants on their role in research . Data were drawn from a larger study of alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic among Canadian adults . Four attention check items, as recommended by Prolific’s guidelines, were implemented in this study to ensure data quality  . Participants’ data were automatically excluded from the study if they failed 2 or more attention checks and completed all questions in an unrealistically short time . Of the 400 remaining participants, we selected a subsample that endorsed having used any type of cannabis in the past three months  for the present analyses. Participants’ data were further excluded for missing  or non-systematic  data on the Marijuana Purchase Task . The final sample was comprised of 137 participants. Data collection was completed from April 30, 2020 to May 4, 2020, approximately 7–8 weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. A majority of the measures required participants to respond to items by referencing either a month prior to the COVID-19 state of emergency in their area or in reference to the past month . This study was approved by York University’s Office of Research Ethics. All participants were given $13 CAD as compensation.The present study is among the first to investigate mediational pathways to cannabis use and problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to understand the role of indices of cannabis demand on motives for use and patterns of cannabis use and misuse. Previous research has indicated that individual differences in substance demand is a pre-existing factor that may place an individual at vulnerability for increased substance use and problems . In line with previous alcohol demand research, we hypothesized that internal motives for cannabis use, specifically coping and enhancement, may mediate this relationship. Our results indicate that two indices of demand, Persistence and Amplitude, were related to increased cannabis problems via the use motive of coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. This model did not support the role of enhancement motives. This finding indicates that those with increased cannabis demand who tend to use cannabis to cope are at increased risk of experiencing negative cannabis-related consequences.

This is largely in line with previous research implicating increased cannabis demand in increased cannabis craving, use quantity and frequency, and dependence symptoms . Of particular note is the finding that the demand facet of Persistence was implicated in this model. Previous research  has indicated that Amplitude was more associated with increased cannabis use and cannabis-related problems. This difference in finding may be attributable to differences in sample characteristics. The participants in Aston et al.  recruited pre-pandemic from Rhode Island, a U.S. state in which recreational cannabis use is illegal. In contrast, participants in the current study were from across Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, a country in which recreational cannabis use has been legal for over two years. Elevated cannabis demand appears to be a vulnerability factor for experiencing cannabis-related problems, and as such early identification and prevention efforts should be targeted at these individuals. This is especially relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, with its associated unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, both about the virus itself as well as caused by the associated lockdowns and emergency measures, . Cannabis use has been wellestablished as a method to cope with stress for some, and this method may be especially salient to those individuals who perceive cannabis tohave a higher reinforcement value . Using cannabis to cope is especially relevant in the context of a largescale external stressor like the COVID-19 pandemic. Other research has shown that COVID-19-related worry is associated with using cannabis to cope . Those that use cannabis to deal with stressors may be more likely to experience heavier cannabis use and more cannabisrelated problems . Specifically focusing cannabis interventions on skills for coping with general and traumatic stress might be an important target to improve treatment outcomes . In extreme situations like the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns in which access to formal interventions might be limited, encouraging stress-reducing activities like exercise and yoga may be beneficial . Broadly, grow tent hydroponic encouraging the use of more adaptive coping strategies rather than cannabis use is a clear implication of the current research. The findings of this study must be considered in light of certain limitations. The most significant limitation is the use of cross-sectional data to test a mediational model, and therefore being unable to determine the temporal precedence of variables.

Despite this limitation, participants reported their pre-pandemic cannabis use so that we were able to control for retrospective use. The current research is also limited to the initial period of the pandemic. Since restrictions have been variously lifted and re-implemented in response to COVID-19 case counts, it is important to examine longer term effects of the pandemic on cannabis used and the role of demand using a longitudinal model. Furthermore, the sample size for the current study is modest for testing the hypothesized path model. However, our large R2 effect sizes suggest that we captured strong predictors of cannabis motives and problems during COVID-19 in our study. Next, since the MPT is a measure of hypothetical consumption of cannabis, actual cannabis consumption is not measured by this task. However, previous research has provided evidence for the validity of hypothetical purchase tasks for other substances . Future research is needed to support the validity of the MPT. Moreover, the MPT instructional set refers to smoking “hits” of cannabis, which may impact its use among those whose primary form of cannabis use is vaping or consuming edibles. Though the majority of the sample in the current study indicated that dried cannabis was their primary form of use, this presents a clear limitation to the ecological validity of the MPT. Recent qualitative research on the MPT has recommended against the use of the term “hits” in favor of “grams” and that the specific mode of cannabis administration be incorporated into future iterations of the MPT . A further potential limitation is that the study measures were administered online rather than in a laboratory context. This presents several drawbacks when administering the MPT, namely that the research team was not able to emphasize important parts of the instructions or answer questions; it is possible that participants’ performance was impacted in a negative way by these factors . Also, because our sample was drawn from a larger sample of Canadian drinkers it is possible that cannabis use motives in our sample may have differed systematically from those of cannabis-only users. Co-use of cannabis and alcohol is associated with elevated alcohol demand , so it is possible that co-use may also systematically impact both cannabis demand and motives for use. Finally, we acknowledge that our sample had a rather high level of income . While household income was unrelated to cannabis use variables in this study, our findings may not generalize to samples with lower income. In conclusion, this study replicates a modest body of previous research linking cannabis demand to cannabis-related problems and provides evidence for the role of coping motives in the increased cannabis-related problems experienced by those with elevated cannabis demand.

Further research is needed to replicate this research within a sample of cannabis-only users and in a real-world, offline setting. This research will inform best practices for targeted problematic cannabis use interventions. C. sativa is the subject of one of the most common drug law offenses in Europe. Since 2014, cannabis accounted for almost 60% of an overall estimate of 1.6 million offenses including possession and trafficking. Cannabis can be classified into legal fiber type  and illegal drug type . Marijuana differs from hemp based on the high level of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol . In Italy, the possession of limited amounts of marijuana, i.e., containing 500 mg of Δ9-THC, is considered only a civil offense. On the contrary, trafficking and selling cannabis is prohibited and punished by law. On the other hand, support and promotion of hemp crops is allowed for textiles, food, cosmetic production and bioengineering industry. The Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs  recommended a series of analyses to confirm the presence of cannabis. Nevertheless, none of these analytical tests are able to individualize cannabis plants or crop type. During 1990′s, different C. sativa DNA methods were developed to individualize and to determine the origin of plants for forensic purposes. Thus, various molecular techniques have been applied including, random amplified polymorphic DNA , amplified fragment length polymorphism  and short tandem repeats.