Pubdate: Thu, 09 Oct 2014
Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.therecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225
Author: Sheryl Ubelacker
Page: A4
Cited: CAMH Cannabis Policy Framework: http://mapinc.org/url/sCod1dXx

POT SHOULD BE LEGALIZED, ADDICTION CENTRE SAYS

Selling it like alcohol seen as the most effective means of reducing
the harms associated with its use

TORONTO - Canada's largest mental health and addiction treatment and
research centre is calling for the legalization of marijuana, with
strict controls that would govern who could buy weed, from where, and
in what quantity.

In a policy statement released Thursday, the Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health in Toronto said cannabis should be sold through a
government-controlled monopoly and with limited availability and an
age limit, possibly through outlets similar to provincially operated
liquor stores.

"Legalization means that we remove all penalties for cannabis
possession and use by adults," said Jurgen Rehm, director of social
and epidemiological research at CAMH.

"Canada's current system of cannabis control is failing to prevent or
reduce the harms associated with cannabis use," he said Wednesday.
"Based on a thorough review of the evidence, we believe that
legalization combined with strict regulation of cannabis is the most
effective means of reducing the harms associated with its use."

Those harms include respiratory diseases such as lung cancer, the risk
of death or disability from motor vehicle accidents, and deleterious
effects on cognition, particularly among pot-smoking adolescents
because their brains are still developing.

Given its potential harms, legalizing and controlling the sale of
marijuana in Canada is an important public health measure, Rehm stressed.

Although possessing pot is illegal, a significant proportion of
Canadians still use the herb.

In fact, Canada has one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the
world, with 40 per cent of Canadians having used it at least once in
their lifetime.

In Ontario, for instance, a survey showed about the same percentage of
people aged 18 to 29 reported having smoked pot in the previous year.

"We have a lot of our adolescents smoking marijuana, so it does not do
what it's supposed to be doing," he said of criminalizing cannabis.

"We push our youth, our adolescents into an illegal market, and where
other drugs are sold from the same dealer."

"And we cannot control all of this unless we legalize the substance
. plus we can control the potency and the quality, too."

Part of that control would include restricting sales to consumers over
a certain age - such as 19, 20 or 21- similar to age rules in place
for those buying alcohol.

Ian Culbert, executive-director of the Canadian Public Health
Association, welcomed the call for legalization by CAMH.

"The war on drugs has failed and it has done more damage than any
possible good," said Culbert. "So we have to take a different approach."

"Canadian society isn't overnight going to embrace this idea of
legalization and regulation, so it's a conversation that we have to
have."

Rehm said a legalized system would need to be designed at the federal
level, but CAMH does not advocate following the somewhat wild-west
example of Colorado, which has legalized pot and has few constraints
on who can sell the product or to whom.

"That's exactly what we do not want."
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MAP posted-by: Matt