Striving for a Public Health Look into Marijuana
Canada has a long history with marijuana laws. Starting with criminalization of the herb back in 1923. in 1973 a report was done, which is still considered one of the best, it is called the Le Dain.
The Le Dain was a commission that was put together by then Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The basic findings in this report are that criminalization of marijuana does nothing to stop people from using weed, it just contributes to a large criminal underground. These are usually the findings in such matters as those of us in the US know from our prohibition of alcohol.
These finding have been echoed many times over the years, in may countries. It has been found that weed, like other drugs has possible side-effects. It has been long debated whether it is addictive. Findings show that while there is little or no physical addiction and withdrawal, there can be a mental dependence. Some vulnerable individuals can development mental disorders. All of this points t cannabis use being a closer match to a public health framework, than to the criminal one that exists now.
This is also the recommendation of Benedikt Fischer and his team at Simon Fraser University.
He states that a looking at the issue from a public health standpoint would include strategies for prevention, risk reduction and treating problem users. The team has given an example of what these risk reducing strategies might look like in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
In the paper it gives a set of cannabis use guidelines which are similar to those used for alcohol and are backed by the latest research. They discuss some of the problems that are associated with marijuana such as daily use, use during pregnancy, starting use early in life and driving under the influence of marijuana.
Of course this doesn’t not include all the problems, but it is the start of a public health approach to this problem, using evidence, not just fear. Hopefully this will be a huge step towards decriminalization of marijuana as a drug and since it is fact based it is something that people will get behind and support; even those who don’t usually support marijuana use.
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