CAN-STRESS: A Real-World Multimodal Dataset for Understanding Cannabis Use, Stress, and Physiological Responses

Abstract: Coping with stress is one of the most frequently cited reasons for chronic cannabis use. Therefore, it is hypothesized that cannabis users exhibit distinct physiological stress responses compared to non-users, and these differences would be more pronounced during moments of consumption. However, there is a scarcity of publicly available datasets that allow such hypotheses to be tested in real-world environments. This paper introduces a dataset named CAN-STRESS, collected using Empatica E4 wristbands. The dataset includes physiological measurements such as skin conductance, heart rate, and skin temperature from 82 participants (39 cannabis users and 43 non-users) as they went about their daily lives. Additionally, the dataset includes self-reported surveys where participants documented moments of cannabis consumption, exercise, and rated their perceived stress levels during those moments. In this paper, we publicly release the CAN-STRESS dataset, which we believe serves as a highly reliable resource for examining the impact of cannabis on stress and its associated physiological markers. I