In the last Federal election (2015), Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada vowed to legalize recreational cannabis. This promise is soon to become reality as the Canadian government has proposed to move forward with legalization to July 2018. Along with a change in legislature comes sizeable public opposition from people who are afraid that legalizing cannabis will carry unintended consequences. This video demystifies unfounded conjecture surrounding the topic of cannabis legalization. It uses peer-reviewed evidence from jurisdictions that have either already legalized recreational cannabis use or have evaluated the use of cannabis and its associated outcomes. The video informs about the impacts, both positive and negative, of cannabis use in Canada’s new age of drug legalization.
This video was made by McMaster Demystifying Medicine students Raisa Ahmed, Peter Malik, Nandini Nandeesha and Zahra Najarali
Copyright McMaster University 2018
References:
https://www.leafly.com/news/canada/history-cannabis-canada
https://www.cigionline.org/articles/canada-should-not-legalize-cannabis-until-it-withdraws-un-drug-control-treaties
Nutt, D. J., King, L. A., Phillips, L. D., & Independent Scientific Committee on, D. (2010). Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis. Lancet, 376(9752), 1558-1565. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6
Lucas, P., Reiman, A., Earleywine, M., McGowan, S. K., Oleson, M., Coward, M. P., & Thomas, B. (2013). Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs: A dispensary-based survey of substitution effect in Canadian medical cannabis patients. Addiction Research & Theory, 21(5), 435-442. doi:10.3109/16066359.2012.733465
Bachhuber, M. A., Saloner, B., Cunningham, C. O., & Barry, C. L. (2014). Medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality in the United States, 1999-2010. JAMA Intern Med, 174(10), 1668-1673. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.4005
Statistics Canada. (2017). Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey: Summary of results for 2015. Ottawa, Ont.: Author. Retrieved April 28, 2017, from www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canadian-tobacco-alcohol-drugs-survey/2015-summary.html?=undefined&wbdisable=true
http://www.ccsa.ca/Resource%20Library/CCSA-Canadian-Drug-Summary-Cannabis-2017-en.pdf
Health Canada. (2016). Summary of results: Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey 2014–2015. Ottawa, Ont.: Author. Retrieved April 28, 2017, from www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canadian-student-tobacco-alcohol-drugs-survey/2014-2015-supplementary-tables.html#t13.
Choo, E. K., Benz, M., Zaller, N., Warren, O., Rising, K. L., & Mcconnell, K. J. (2014). The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Legislation on Adolescent Marijuana Use. Journal of Adolescent Health,55(2), 160-166. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.02.018
Dills, A.K., Goffard, S., Miron, J. (2016). Dose of Reality: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations. Cato Institute Policy Analysis,779. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2842278
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2016). World Drug Report 2016. (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.16.XI.7).
Ghosh, T. S., Vigil, D. I., Maffey, A., Tolliver, R., Dyke, M. V., Kattari, L., . . . Wolk, L. (2017). Lessons learned after three years of legalized, recreational marijuana: The Colorado experience. Preventive Medicine,104, 4-6. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.02.021
Lake, S., & Kerr, T. (2016). The Challenges of Projecting the Public Health Impacts of Marijuana Legalization in Canada Comment on “Legalizing and Regulating Marijuana in Canada: Review of Potential Economic, Social, and Health Impacts.” International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 6(5), 285–287. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2016.124
Jones, H. J., Gage, S. H., Heron, J., Hickman, M., Lewis, G., Munafò, M. R., & Zammit, S. (2018). Association of Combined Patterns of Tobacco and Cannabis Use in Adolescence With Psychotic Experiences. JAMA Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.4271
Hajizadeh, M. (2016). Legalizing and Regulating Marijuana in Canada: Review of Potential Economic, Social, and Health Impacts. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 5(8), 453–456. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2016.63
Di Forti, M., Marconi, A., Carra, E., Fraietta, S., Trotta, A., Bonomo, M., … Murray, R. M. (2015). Proportion of patients in south London with first-episode psychosis attributable to use of high potency cannabis: a case-control study. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(3), 233–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(14)00117-5
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/campaigns/legalizing-strictly-regulating-cannabis-facts.html
