Trigger Warning CBC's madness - 5 years of legal cannabis: fewer charges, many hospitalizations and more than a few questions. esp after reading it.

[Landrew]

5 years of legal cannabis: fewer charges, many hospitalizations and more than a few questions​

As retailers made it easier to buy cannabis, hospitalization numbers ticked upward​

Amina Zafar · CBC News · Posted: Oct 10, 2023 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: October 10

When Canada legalized the use of cannabis in October 2018 after decades of prohibition, the goals were to improve safety and public health as well as to reduce access by youth, crime and the illegal market.

Five years later, public health experts say legalization hasn't created any health benefits — but it has been linked to some serious concerns.

Tuesday's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal includes a commentary taking stock on what's happened with the legalization of non-medical cannabis. The paper doesn't examine a greater uptake of medical cannabis, which has been regulated by the government since 2001.

More than a quarter of Canadian adults — 27 per cent — say they use cannabis, up from 22 per cent in 2017, said author Benedikt Fischer, an adjunct professor at the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health & Addiction at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

"Cannabis has been a widely available, normalized and even promoted product," Fischer said.

Benefits​

Though the CMAJ commenters did not cite any direct health benefits from legalization, the paper notes the important social justice benefits from substantial reductions in criminal arrests and charges, along with the associated stigma [...]

Read More :

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cannabis-5-year-1.6989993

 

[thujone]

i'm not really surprised, given the prevalence of concentrates.

before legalization, it wasn't easy to get concentrates and with black market green it would be natural to do tolerance breaks just to economize.

now you can get budder in disposable vape pens, it's very easy to have too big a dose.

i think the biggest factor was probably the pandemic, though. of course if you force people to stay home they will overindulge in vice - the same thing was observed with alcohol consumption.

the lockdowns probably killed more than the virus would have.

 

[Flynnal]

So...I guess they want to re-criminalise cannabis again? If the government is concerned about bodily autonomy then why are they trying to tell us that we can't put a (for the most part) harmless substance in our bodies?

Whatever happened to adulting? Or do they want to keep treating us like infants?

the lockdowns probably killed more than the virus would have.

I'll second that. The lockdowns probably contributed to mental health disorders and suicide. The virus sure did some damage, but the mental health outcomes were undoubtedly worsened. I don't understand why the government is talking about the fallout from legalised cannabis whilst there was a virus and a subsequent lockdown going on.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

If “improved health” was the goal, that could have been achieved through the medicinal cannabis program.

The recreational market isn’t about public health (at least not directly), it’s about removing a corrosive societal problem (prohibition) & embracing public policy that skews more towards freedom of choice & respect for the citizenry as people who can decide for themselves whether or not it’s an activity that they wish to partake in.

 

[Landrew]

So...I guess they want to re-criminalise cannabis again?

I have not heard much of that, even the alt-right lobsters a'la "canada is dying" seem to tolerate legalization.

This article [The CBC story, not the study behind it] confused the fuck out of me on so many levels, I didn't have much time to wonder what the author was trying to accomplish.

It is never clarified why they are going to the hospital ERs, more like obscured..