Evidence of meeting #27 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was effects.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Libby Davies
Okay.
We're finished with Ms. Adams' time, so we'll now go back to Mr. Young.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Lucas, you mixed some terms there that I don't think should be mixed. You made a reference that sounded to me like you were talking about treating pain in end-of-life palliative care, and I think that's a completely different issue. When you take a prescription drug, the question is always, “Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks?”, and when you're terminally ill, the risks are minimized.
You also used the term “healing”. Now, I don't know of any clinical evidence or have never seen any that marijuana heals anything.
Mr. Walsh, you claim there's an “absence of evidence” of health risks and harms from marijuana. I have to tell you that all of the experts we've heard from in medicine and pharmacology disagree with you.
Have you conducted any double-blind clinical studies, not on animals but on human beings, that prove any benefits of marijuana by a clinical standard, which is cause and effect?
10:15 a.m.
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
No, I haven't done any of those studies.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
And we haven't heard of any others; in fact I don't think there are any. So it's all anecdotal, and it's from people who are taking a drug that is six times more powerful than it was perhaps 20 years ago—perhaps more—that creates a powerful euphoria and makes them feel better simply because of the euphoria. The anecdotal evidence is not clinical evidence.
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I think Dr. Ware's study, which was done at McGill University and clearly looked at chronic pain and the treatment of chronic pain, was a Canadian-funded—funded by the Canadian government—double-blind study, peer-reviewed and published study. It showed that cannabis was very effective in non-terminal patients in the treatment of chronic pain. There's a similar study out of the University of California, San Diego, by Donald Abrams.
So the clinical research is ongoing—
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
In the treatment of pain.
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Well, you mentioned the treatment of pain, so that's why I thought we'd discuss the treatment of pain.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
There are a whole lot of other claims for which we haven't heard any evidence.
Mr. Lucas, I think we should get it on the record that you work for a company that produces marijuana. You make your living selling marijuana. I think that's important to get on the record.
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I agree. That's why I stated it.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Yes.
In a previous study at this committee, we heard from Peggi DeGroote, who runs a methadone clinic in Burlington. She said there is absolutely no question that marijuana is addictive. We've heard from experts at CAMH. We heard from Kevin Sabet, Ph.D., from the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, that one out of six teens—one out of six—who smoke marijuana will become addicted. We also know that addiction will cause serious health harms and hurt their relationships, academic achievement, and work opportunities.
So my question is this, Mr. Walsh: why do you try to minimize these terrible risks to our young people?
10:20 a.m.
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Oh, I'm not trying to minimize them; I'm trying to accurately convey them. It's hard for me to answer a question of why I would minimize them when that's not what I'm attempting to do.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Well, you said to this committee that there's no evidence; you said there is an “absence of evidence...of health risks and harms”, which is a ridiculous claim based on everything else we've heard at this committee.
10:20 a.m.
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
There's an absence of evidence of physical health risks.
I noted some risks associated with schizophrenia. As far as violence goes, I see an absence of evidence. As far as anxiety goes, I see an absence of evidence. As far as long-term cognitive deficits, I see an absence of evidence.
Those are the issues that I presented to the committee.
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I think I made it clear, or certainly the research that I have suggests, that one in ten regular cannabis users develops a level of dependence to it, but the dependence is short-lived. It's usually self-treated. It lasts three days to a few weeks—
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
That's certainly what the evidence that I'm aware of suggests.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
It's interesting that when drug companies are trying to sell a drug, they call addiction a dependence when it's really basically the same thing.
I just looked up the study I mentioned before. I would like to get it on the record, Madam Chair. It was a study by Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. This was under a Democratic president, the most liberal president since Jimmy Carter. This was from May 2003. The conclusion of the study was that marijuana was the drug most commonly linked to crime. Among adult males arrested for crimes in five major cities across the United States, 80% tested positive for at least one illegal drug. Marijuana was the most common, and it ranged from 37% to 58%. They did urinalysis, etc.
Surely you can recognize the misery suffered by the victims of these crimes and recognize the link between marijuana use and crime.
10:20 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
The evidence is really clear on this issue that cannabis is not criminogenic. Mr. Kerlikowske is not an MD. He's a former police chief of Seattle. What he's referring to are blood plasma levels showing past cannabis use, not present cannabis use that was there when the crime was committed, or otherwise—
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Well, let me tell you what we heard from a real expert, a pharmacologist—
10:20 a.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Libby Davies
Excuse me, Mr. Young. We're now over time, so we're going to go to Ms. Fry.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wilks. I understand that you gave me your time. Thank you very much. It's very kind of you, and collegial, I might say.
I wanted to discuss more about the benefits, because as a physician I have never seen any studies that looked at any drug at all, whether a prescription drug or a non-prescription drug, and did not look at the benefits versus the harms and risks. Because you can only decide on the value of the drug based on the weight of those benefits versus harms and risks.
I just wanted to go back to this. We've heard about—and it's well known—some of the risks to prepubescent mind and prepubescent brains in terms of cognitive disorders, etc. We know of the addictive nature of cannabis. These are all known factors. They're not something that anyone is disputing.
I think, however, that what we are looking at is, what are the benefits that may actually put some of those things into perspective? I wanted to go back because I noticed that you were challenged on the pain benefits of marijuana. I do know that there are many studies I have seen that have looked at neurogenic pain, hence a lot of MS users use cannabis because of the neurogenic pain component of it.
Can you tell me a little more about some of the benefits of marijuana, including for neurogenic pain? You've talked a little about the gastrointestinal uses, but about nausea, how does it work on nausea? Does it work on the brain or does it work in terms of nausea on the GI system and on the neurogenic pain component?
I don't know which one of you wants to take that.
10:25 a.m.
Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Sure, I can discuss this a little bit. The primary constituents of the endocannabinoid system, that we know of—CB1 and CB2—are found either in the immune system or in the brain and otherwise...so they course through our body. Now, different cannabinoids bind in the endocannabinoid system, and we're still discovering exactly what that relationship is. That's why we know, for example, that we tend to have better results with whole-plant cannabis products than with single cannabinoids. That's indicative of some kind of synergistic effect.
But because there are over 100 cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, it's fair to say that we haven't discovered exactly what each mechanism is and how they work in isolation or together. What I can tell you is that, as you've listed, there's a number of different effects that cannabinoids and cannabis have that are incontrovertible among the scientific community.
They're anti-intoxicant. They're anti-inflammatory, which is one of the reasons why they're so effective in the treatment of chronic pain. They're calmative. They're anti-emetic, which stops people from having nausea and vomiting. They're associated with spasticity reduction when it comes to seizure disorders, such as MS and epilepsy. There's a reduction in the intra-ocular eye pressure, which is why people have recommended it for glaucoma. Also, they're anti-tumourific and anti-carcinogenic, as well as antiviral, and that's one of the reasons why people with hepatitis C sometimes find them to be effective in the reduction of liver inflammation, in the reduction of viral attacks on the liver, and also in helping people to put up with the side effects of hepatitis C treatments.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal