{"id":88491,"date":"2023-10-10T12:06:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T16:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=88491"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:29","slug":"opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-myths-about-cannabis-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2023\/10\/opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-myths-about-cannabis-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Michael Armstrong discusses myths about cannabis legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article written by Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before Canada legalized recreational cannabis in October 2018, there was\u00a0considerable debate about its potential effects. Some predicted it would trigger\u00a0an economic \u201cgoldrush,\u201d\u00a0while others worried it would lead to\u00a0public health \u201ctragedies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers like myself\u00a0have since investigated the real effects of legalization. As it turns out, certain trends were already underway before legalization and continued afterward. On the flip side, some changes did not happen as anticipated.<\/p>\n

This information can help other countries that are now grappling with similar uncertainties about their own legalization plans. Politicians across the globe have been making diverse claims about the impact legalization will have on their countries.<\/p>\n

In the United States,\u00a0Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts\u00a0has said cannabis is a \u201cdangerous drug\u201d that will kill children. German politician Markus S\u00f6der has\u00a0voiced similar concerns.<\/p>\n

On the opposing end of the spectrum, Kenyan presidential candidate George Wajackoyah\u00a0proposed the legalization and commercialization of cannabis\u00a0as a way to eliminate Kenya\u2019s public debt.<\/p>\n

Given these debates, Canada\u2019s cannabis legalization experience can offer valuable insights to countries navigating the same terrain.<\/p>\n

Cannabis use<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many were concerned that legalizing cannabis would trigger a huge increase in usage, resulting in\u00a0\u201chordes of stoned teenagers\u201d. Opponents to legalization argued that\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0increase in usage\u00a0would prove it had failed.<\/p>\n

However, the percentage of adults using cannabis had already been increasing prior to 2018. Unsurprisingly, it\u00a0continued to rise after legalization.\u00a0Government surveys\u00a0put the usage rate at nine per cent in 2011, 15 per cent in 2017 and 20 per cent in 2019.<\/p>\n

There was a\u00a0boost after legalization\u00a0beyond the ongoing trend. But part of that might have been from people becoming\u00a0more open about cannabis use.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, teenagers\u2019 cannabis use\u00a0hardly budged after 2018. This suggests teenagers who wanted cannabis were already able to buy it easily from dealers.<\/p>\n

Health issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health impacts were also a significant concern while Canada was debating cannabis legalization. Canada\u2019s previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, claimed cannabis was\u00a0\u201cinfinitely worse\u201d\u00a0than tobacco. His successor, Justin Trudeau, instead said legalization would\u00a0\u201cprotect\u201d health.<\/p>\n

In reality, cannabis-related hospital visits by adults\u00a0were already growing before\u00a02018 and\u00a0kept growing afterward. Compared to early 2011, the rate in Ontario was about three times higher in 2018 and five times higher in 2021.<\/p>\n

The post-2018 growth was, again,\u00a0partly legalization-related\u00a0and partly an on-going trend.<\/p>\n

However, some health impacts have been more serious. There has been significant growth in\u00a0children\u2019s hospital visits due to accidental cannabis consumption. Among children under 10 years old, there was a nine-fold increase in emergency room visits and a six-fold increase in hospitalizations.<\/p>\n

Driving safety<\/strong><\/p>\n

Law enforcement was concerned that legalizing cannabis\u00a0would cause more impaired driving. Police complained that they lacked the equipment necessary for detecting cannabis impairment.<\/p>\n

Research on\u00a0whether\u00a0or not\u00a0legalization actually resulted in more cannabis-impaired driving remains inconclusive. Unfortunately, government reports often don\u2019t specify which substances caused drivers\u2019 impairments.<\/p>\n

However, we do know\u00a0overall drug-impaired driving\u00a0\u2014 any substance except alcohol \u2014 increased before and after 2018. Compared to 2011, drug-impaired driving arrests roughly doubled by 2017 and quadrupled by 2020.<\/p>\n

There have also been ongoing increases in injuries from\u00a0traffic accidents involving cannabis. Compared to 2011, the injury rates in Ontario were about two times higher in 2017 and three times higher in 2020.<\/p>\n

Arrest rates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Legalization also brought up concerns about crime and social justice. The\u00a0federal government expected legalization\u00a0would reduce the time police spent on cannabis enforcement. Advocates hoped to see\u00a0fewer arrests among marginalized groups.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0the declines in arrests that legalization triggered\u00a0weren\u2019t very large. This was because arrests for\u00a0illegal cannabis possession had already been decreasing in Canada\u00a0\u2014 under both Conservative and Liberal governments \u2014 long before legalization. By 2018, the arrest rate was already 71 per cent lower than its 2011 level.<\/p>\n

While arrests fell again in 2019, they bottomed-out afterwards, leaving little room for further rate drops.<\/p>\n

Arrests for illegal cannabis distribution offences, like growing and trafficking, fell 67 per cent between 2011 and 2018. This trend largely continued after 2018.<\/p>\n

Booming sales<\/strong><\/p>\n

Businesses had high hopes that legalization would lead to\u00a0an economic goldrush.\u00a0Foreign investors helped fund\u00a0Canadian cannabis companies. There were also debates among the governments about\u00a0how to distribute the new tax revenue.<\/p>\n

After legalization, cannabis business did boom in some ways. Although most provinces initially\u00a0lacked enough stores, there are now more than 3,600 across Canada. Sales have surged from $42 million in October 2018 to $446 million in July 2023. They\u2019re now\u00a0half as large as beer sales.<\/p>\n

However, some regions now have\u00a0too many cannabis stores\u00a0and\u00a0many businesses are struggling to stay afloat. As a result, some corporations and their shareholders\u00a0have lost billions of dollars. Only the\u00a0government-owned cannabis agencies seem to be consistently profitable.<\/p>\n

Legalization lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n

While legalization did cause\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0changes, it was also a government response to changes that were already underway. There are three potential lessons that can be taken away from this.<\/p>\n

The first is that cannabis legalization research\u00a0needs to account for existing trends. It can\u2019t rely on simple before-versus-after comparisons. Governments can help with this by\u00a0publishing more of the cannabis data\u00a0they collect.<\/p>\n

The second lesson is that Canadian policymakers should worry less about whether legalization caused specific cannabis problems. Instead, they should focus on resolving them.<\/p>\n

The third lesson is for other countries considering legalization, like\u00a0Germany,\u00a0Denmark\u00a0and the\u00a0U.S<\/a>. For these countries, Canada\u2019s experience serves as a valuable case study. Policymakers should review their own trends before legalizing, because the outcomes afterward might not be as different as they expect.\u00a0<\/em>
\n\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, wrote a piece published in The Conversation on debunking the myths about the impact of cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,7,6,1],"tags":[594,4395,12987,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88509,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88491\/revisions\/88509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}