Home cannabis growers in the ACT have been encouraged to offer their plants for anonymous testing to help researchers understand the strength and safety of the Canberra crop.
The University of Sydney's Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics has launched a study of ACT residents growing and using small quantities of cannabis for medicinal and recreational purposes.
The legalisation of home-grown cannabis in the ACT at the start of 2020 will allow researchers to study the way people grow and use cannabis at home.
Lambert Initiative director Professor Iain McGregor said cannabis growers who had achieved profound therapeutic effects were naturally curious about what their cannabis contained.
"The CAN-ACT study was inspired by an ACT resident who was growing cannabis to help treat his wife's advanced cancer," Professor McGregor said.
A 70-year-old Canberra man, known as "Patrick", said home-grown cannabis had given his late wife a better quality of life in her last 18 months than could be achieved with pharmaceuticals.
"The standard 'end of life' drug package made my wife comatose. This never happened with cannabis," Patrick said.
"We had no prior cannabis experience, we had to work out what dosage to take and how often.
"The biggest difficulties arose when we could not figure out if a symptom was the result of the tumour, the pharmaceuticals, or the cannabis. This is where I believe 'user testing' can improve our knowledge."
The study, which is only open to ACT residents, will allow home cannabis growers to anonymously submit their cannabis for free testing and then access the results.
Professor McGregor said there was a large number of cannabis varieties grown in Australia and with different active substances, and previous studies had been largely limited to the cannabis samples that had been seized by police.
Growers must first complete a short online survey before they are invited to send in their samples to researchers. The study is open to people who have cultivated cannabis in the territory since it became legal in 2020.
A courier will pick up samples from people in the ACT and provide a unique identification number so the person who provides the sample will be able to access the analysis results. All information that could link the sample with the person will be destroyed.
Researchers will release the full data set from the different samples at the end of the study period, Professor McGregor said.
Researchers will check samples for the main psychoactive components - tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD) - along with other other cannabinoids and biologically active molecules.
But the analysis will also check for potentially harmful contaminants that include toxins produced by fungi, heavy metals and pesticides.
The study is expected to release its findings in 2023, and researchers hope it will help provide information on how to make home-grown cannabis safer, including advice on when it is safe to drive after consuming the drug and how to prevent it from becoming contaminated as it grows.
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