{"id":3990,"date":"2024-05-29T12:15:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T02:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/legalize-cannabis-and-usage-will-unlikely-increase-particularly-among-the-young-cannabis-lobby\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:01:58","slug":"legalize-cannabis-and-usage-will-unlikely-increase-particularly-among-the-young-cannabis-lobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/legalize-cannabis-and-usage-will-unlikely-increase-particularly-among-the-young-cannabis-lobby\/","title":{"rendered":"Legalize Cannabis and Usage Will Unlikely Increase, particularly among the young!\u201d\u00a0 (Cannabis Lobby)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>How has non-medical cannabis legalization served the health and welfare of under-age (adolescent) youth in Canada?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>prevalence of cannabis use (in the past 12-months) among ages 16\u201319 years increased from 36% in 2018 to 43% in 2023.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>implementation of cannabis legalization (2018\u20132019), compared with pre-legalization (2001\u20132017) was associated with a 31% increased likelihood of any cannabis use, a 40% increased likelihood of daily cannabis use and a 98% increased likelihood of cannabis dependence among Ontario secondary students<\/li>\n<li>under-age youth in Alberta (&lt;18 years) and Ontario (&lt;19&nbsp;years), legalization was associated with a 20% increase-equivalent (2015\u20132019) for emergency department visits involving cannabis-related disorder\/poisoning, and there were (moderate) increases in cannabis-related (e.g., for psychosis, poisoning, withdrawal, harmful use) hospitalizations among young individuals&nbsp;(ages 15\u201324) in Canada&#8217;s four largest provinces<\/li>\n<li>remained as the respective relative majorities of enforced cannabis offenses in the post-legalization period. Despite a supposed general \u2018ban\u2019 on cannabis-related advertisement especially for youth protection, almost two-thirds (63%) of Canadian adolescents reported exposure to cannabis-related advertisements or promotions in 2023.3<\/li>\n<li>Half-a-decade into legalization and its consequential \u2018normalization\u2019 environment for cannabis, we observe a mixed picture of developments for main outcome indicators among underage\/adolescent youth in Canada. While cannabis use rates have remained steady at best at comparably high levels, selected adverse cannabis-related health outcomes (e.g., hospitalizations), and some risk-behaviors have increased.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>With exposure to cannabis commercialization common, adolescents&#8217; cannabis sourcing practices have shifted from predominantly \u2018illegal\u2019 to \u2018legal\u2019 (albeit so only for adults) and \u2018grey\u2019 (e.g., \u2018social\u2019) sources. [remember it is illegal for children\/youth under the age of 18, (some provinces 19 and 21) to buy or use cannabis] Cannabis-related enforcement has been markedly reduced; however, cannabis (possession) offenses remain disproportionately enforced against underage individuals\u2026 [because it is illegal for them to have and use] The\u2014widely promoted\u2014objective of effective cannabis access and use reduction for this particular age group has not been achieved through legalization.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Source:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanam\/article\/PIIS2667-193X(24)00100-5\/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&nbsp;The Lancet Regional Health \u2013 Americas<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How has non-medical cannabis legalization served the health and welfare of under-age (adolescent) youth in Canada? prevalence of cannabis use (in the past 12-months) among ages 16\u201319 years increased from 36% in 2018 to 43% in 2023.&nbsp; implementation of cannabis legalization (2018\u20132019), compared with pre-legalization (2001\u20132017) was associated with a 31% increased likelihood of any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-3990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-conundrum","tag-cannabis-conundrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}