A survey created by Sara Smucker Barnwell was constructed to assess whether or not cannabis use affects motivation in humans. She forwarded the survey to 200 undergraduate students who complete a class on drugs and human behavior and to 100 acquaintance of her co-author, Mitch Earleywine PhD. She received responses from 1300 people and analyzed the responses of the 244 daily cannabis users and the 243 non users. Based on the responses from the questionnaires there was no difference between daily users of cannabis and non-users in terms of motivation. However, daily cannabis users reported 2 points less on a 28 point scale on well-being in comparison to non-users. After further analysis it showed that the differences in well-being were attributed to the 1/3 of daily users who said they use cannabis for medical reasons. The illnesses resulted in a lower subjective wellbeing score. It should be noted that this study has a few drawbacks one being marijuana users could exaggerate their motivations in order to defy stereotypes, and use of alcohol and other drugs were not taken into account when conducting the survey.
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