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

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

Oct 10, 2023

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.

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