On Tuesday we heard from Dr. Louis Francescutti, Emergency Medicine Expert and Professor at the University of Alberta School of Public Health give an impassioned talk on the legalisation of marijuana and the problems it will cause for the individuals who use it, their employers, the health care system and the public at large.
A few weeks ago, he received a request to appear before the National Committee to speak on Bill C46, authorising the legalisation of marijuana in Canada. In his opinion, marijuana is far too dangerous to the health of our young people to be made legal, and if it is made legal, the minimum age for use should be twenty-five. As an emergency room physician he sees the effects every day on people who come in with cyclic vomiting (caused by steady marijuana use), young people having psychotic episodes brought on by the use of marijuana, and the permanent damage it causes to young lives from the changes it causes in brain chemistry.
The marijuana of today is one hundred times stronger than the marijuana most older folks smoked when they were young, One puff held in the lungs for a short time can cause disorientation for hours. It also results in addiction in one out of every six users. The damage it causes to young people is due to the fact that their brains are still developing, up until around the age of twenty-five, and marijuana contains chemicals that can change gene expression in the brain leading to abnormal developmental processes. This can cause a lowering of their intelligence, and sometimes can bring on brain disorders like schizophrenia or other forms of psychosis, which will then be present for life. The smoke from marijuana also contains some serious carcinogenic substances, just as damaging, or even more so, than tobacco smoke.
Legalisation of marijuana will not alleviate the illegal market, in fact it will probably encourage younger people, ten years old and up, to give it a try, as the government says it is legal, so it must be safe. It will also expose our children to more poisoning episodes in the home, due to the presence of tempting edibles such as candy and brownies. We will see more road accidents due to drugged driving, and will also see a spike in workplace injuries. Employers will have all kinds of issues with delinquency, productivity, and quality of work from impaired workers, much of which may not be immediately apparent. For example, if the electrician wiring your new home is using while working, their errors may not become apparent until much later. Workers seeking to avoid the stigma of testing positive for marijuana use, and still needing the high it gives, may switch to even worse substitutes such as crystal meth. There will be a lot more people who need help dealing with addiction and mental health issues, and we can barely keep up with helping those who need help now.
The marijuana industry will most likely follow the same mantra that the tobacco industry uses, to manipulate to the product to make it as addictive as possible, while downplaying the public health issues, claiming everything is fine, while maximising their profit. This will be a big money industry and our government is being blinded by the dollar signs that taxes will bring in. Every tax dollar earned should be earmarked for mental health, but we know this will not happen. Not very many organised groups have stood up to protest the legalisation. He would like to see a lot more people stand up to oppose this legislation, as our young people, those who will be impacted most, are least likely of all to understand the impact it is about to have on their lives.