Canada’s Cannabis Legalization: A Costly Experiment with Unintended Consequences.
We were told pot was harmless, the black market would disappear, we’d have a gusher of tax revenue, and the kids would be OK. All of that was wrong.
In the 21-month period from January 2020 to September 2021, more than 350 children under the age of nine were rushed to emergency rooms across Canada for the same reason. Cannabis poisoning.
Years ago, the advocates of cannabis reform argued that if we legalized, even normalized, the drug, everything would be fine. The drug was harmless, the black market would disappear, we’d have a gusher of tax revenue, law enforcement resources would be freed up, the kids would be OK, there’d be no cost to the health-care system, and it even had medicinal benefits. How wrong they’ve been.
The data is in. It’s bad.
As the first major western country to legalize cannabis, Canada has been a fascinating experiment for researchers. Numerous scientific studies are now available with us as the subject.
A 2022 study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded, “legalization [in Canada] was associated with marked increases in hospitalizations for cannabis poisoning in children.”
Here are a few more startling and sad facts:
- –Drugged driving is now a significant factor in serious car accidents, according to a recent study published by the University of British Columbia.
- –Canada has the second highest rate of marijuana use in the world, just behind Papua New Guinea.
- –Prevalence of use by youth has increased 19 per cent since legalization.
- –Cannabis use disorder in 18-to-24-year-olds has increased since legalization.
- –Hospitals have seen massive increases in ER visits for cannabis-induced psychosis, severe vomiting, and acute pregnancy care.
- –There is increased evidence that regular cannabis use, particularly in youth, may cause serious health problems, including psychosis, anxiety, depression, altered brain functioning and addiction, especially among those with predispositions.
Even before legalization, pot use steadily increased over the past 30 years, more than doubling since 1985. Coincidentally, cannabis-related ER visits by youths climbed almost 500 per cent between 2003 and 2017, with increases both in severity and length of stay, according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Tim Hortons versus the pot shops
If you think pot shops seem to be more prevalent than Tim Hortons, you’re right. There are now more than 3,600 legal cannabis shops across Canada (not including the ubiquitous illegal ones), edging out the 3,584 Tim Hortons. If Tims was once our national retailer, that title now goes to the pot shop.
As anyone knows, you often can’t walk down the street in Canada without breathing in rancid pot smoke. You can’t take your children to a pro sports game without walking through a cloud outside the gates. Some streets and parks reek of pot, with addicts magnifying the climate of decay and disorder in our cities.
Things have gotten out of hand. To reclaim our streets and parks, smoking pot in public should be a fineable offence.
The financial costs
The black market is flourishing, contrary to the predictions of legalization. One-third of the pot market is still controlled by criminals, according to government estimates. Police budgets are higher than ever. No savings there.
And what about the projected revenue windfalls from taxing the sale of cannabis? Didn’t happen. According to Statistics Canada, the net income to public coffers in 2022-2023 was $1.9 billion. When spread across the 13 federal, provincial and territorial governments, that’s a fiscal grain of sand. It’s doubtful if it even covers the added health-care costs from the increased drug use.
And for some bizarre reason, our cash-starved military is spending almost $200 million per year buying weed for veterans under the rubric of health care, despite scant scientific evidence of any therapeutic benefit.
As bad as governments have been fleeced, it’s nothing compared to losses among investors in the pot industry. A study by the law firm Miller Thomson estimated those losses at more than $131 billion. That investment could have been deployed more productively elsewhere in the economy.
Accumulated failures
Add to this mess the obvious and tragic failure of the safe supply strategy toward other drugs, with its increased crime, parks littered with needles, and opioid overdose deaths since 2016 soaring to a gruesome 40,000 with no end in sight.
With the benefit of hindsight, we should now look clear-eyed at the data. Add up the health-care costs, billions in lost investments, pot smoke fouling our streets and parks, drugged driving, poisoned children, an unstoppable black market, higher teen usage, drug-fuelled crime, the opioid epidemic, and the shattered families and destroyed lives.
Let’s face reality. The decades-old drug liberalization movement that downplayed the serious harms of drugs and led to pot legalization got us here. Heavy-handed law enforcement might not be the solution. Education and prevention must be paramount. But we need a new attitude and a new approach to solve Canada’s drug problem.
