A critique of cannabis legalization proposals in Canada.
An editorial in this issue describes a cannabis policy framework document issued by a major Canadian research centre, calling for legalization of non-medical use under strict controls to prevent increase in use, especially by adolescents and young adults who are most vulnerable to adverse effects of cannabis. It claims that such a system would eliminate the severe personal, social and monetary costs of prohibition, diminish the illicit market, and provide more humane management of cannabis use disorders. It claims that experience with regulation of alcohol and tobacco will enable a system based on public health principles to control access of youth to cannabis without the harm caused by prohibition. The present critique argues that the claims made against decriminalization and for legalization are unsupported, or even contradicted, by solid evidence. Early experience in other jurisdictions suggests that legalization increases use by adolescents and its attendant harms. Regulation of alcohol use does not provide a good model for cannabis controls because there is widespread alcohol use and harm among adolescents and young adults. Government monopolies of alcohol sale have been used primarily as sources of revenue rather than for guarding public health, and no reason has been offered to believe they would act differently with respect to cannabis. Good policy decisions require extensive unbiased information about the individual and social benefits and costs of both drug use and proposed control measures, and value judgments about the benefit/harm balance of each option. Important parts of the necessary knowledge about cannabis are not yet available, so that the value judgments are not yet possible. Therefore, a better case can be made for eliminating some of the harms of prohibition by decriminalization of cannabis possession and deferring decision about legalization until the necessary knowledge has been acquired.
Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A8. Electronic address: harold.kalant@utoronto.ca.
Harold
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Kalant
D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D002170:Canada; D002188:Cannabis; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007880:Legislation, Drug; D008385:Marijuana Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D011050:Policy Making; D011634:Public Health; D011640:Public Policy; D055815:Young Adult
Cannabis policy; Cost-benefit assessment; Decriminalization; Harms caused by prohibition; Harms to adolescent users; Legalization