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Canada: Cannabis use among Canadian teens down since legalization, say researchers Bill Kaufmann Calgary Herald Sunday 15 Mar 2020 “It hasn’t accomplished the goal of keeping it away from youth … it’s a significant problem,” said Mader, a psychologist who is in conjunction with Calgary’s Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre. “One of the things I’m seeing more and more is the attitude of ‘it’s legalized, it’s no big deal,’ and some parents have fallen into that.” Those underage clients, he said, often cite the still-robust black market as their source of cannabis. Even so, studies tracking youth consumption suggest use has fallen since a century of cannabis prohibition ended in October 2018. Statistics Canada’s National Cannabis Survey, which monitors trends quarterly, even states in its before-and-after legalization numbers that the percentage of those aged 15 to 17 who use the drug has fallen to 10 per cent from 20 per cent, a whopping 50 per cent decrease. Even Mader said preliminary results in a University of Calgary study of 900 to 2,200 younger people, aged 18 to 24 shows consumption habits haven’t budged much since legalization. “It’s still early yet to see where things are going but there doesn’t seem to be any research to suggest there’s been any substantial increase or decrease,” said Mader. Two of the main reasons for Canada’s cannabis legalization is to keep it out of the hands of youth and destroy the illegal trade in the substance. StatsCan senior analyst Michelle Rotermann said that dramatic drop in use among teens has to be placed into the context of a steady decrease over more than a decade. A graph produced by the Canadian Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Survey shows cannabis use among those aged 15 to 17 fell to 15 per cent in 2017 from 20 per cent in 2005. “The youth estimate for 15- to 17-year-olds during 2018 pre-legalization period was 19.8 per cent while the corresponding post-legalization 2019 estimate was 10.4 per cent,” said Rotermann. “This does suggest that consumption among 15- to 17-year-olds has fallen over the first year of legalization.” Attributing that change to prohibition’s end would require more in-depth examination of respondents in the survey that taps 40,000 people, she said. “The National Cannabis Survey uses a cross-sectional design which has been collected every three months from independent samples across Canada,” she said. “This allows us to look at associations and change at the population level but not changes experienced by individuals.” And she said whatever data’s been produced in recent months can’t be considered the last word, especially with the recent arrival of potent legal concentrates and edibles. “We need to keep monitoring,” said Rotermann. From her travels discussing substance abuse with Canadians, Anna Goodman said she’s left with the impression legalization hasn’t led to increased use among younger people — consumption she also said had been on a downward trend in previous years. If anything, it’s prompted a more honest discussion about its risks, said Goodman, a policy analyst with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. “They seem to have a pretty good awareness of the harms and research and people are talking about it now,” she said. A lot of that discussion centres around the negative impact cannabis can have on the developing brain that’s widely believed to last into the mid-20s. Goodman praised Ottawa’s strict demands that such things as packaging, marketing and product presentation in the licensed cannabis industry not be attractive to underage consumers. “I was really encouraged to see those policies — we went down to Colorado and saw what does and doesn’t work,” she said. A study involving 1.4 million high school students in the U.S. between 2013 and 2017 found that in states that had legalized pot, youth were 10 per cent less likely to consume it. As for overall cannabis consumption since the advent of legalization, Alberta is the only province outside Atlantic Canada to see a large number of consumers, going from 16 percent to 19 percent. That could have something to do with the much larger number of cannabis stores in Alberta compared to other provinces, said StatsCan’s Rotermann. Nationally, the percentage of pot users rose by two per cent to 17 per cent though the most likely consuming age group — 18 to 24 — remained constant at 33 per cent. Those in the legal industry are both hoping and expecting their market will grow, particularly with the availability of non-smokeable products. But that might be a gradual process, said James Burns, CEO of Alcanna which operates Nova Cannabis stores. “Over time, will it be as mainstream as alcohol? Yes — maybe three or four years from now,” said Burns. BKaufmann@postmedia.com https://calgaryherald.com/news/cannabis-use-among-canadian-teens-down-since-legalization-say-researchers/
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