Health Committee on Sept. 11th, 2017

[Anne McLellan]

I think I can provide that. It was a letter provided by the governor, John Hickenlooper, and his attorney general, in response to a letter from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, requesting certain information in relation to concerns that Attorney General Sessions had. I think it is probably the most up-to-date information the State of Colorado has provided.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Great. That would certainly be useful.

You mention in this update that they said there was no significant increase in the use—

[Anne McLellan]

Youth use, yes.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

—of marijuana in these two states after legalization.

[Anne McLellan]

That was in Colorado.

Then, more recently, Jeff Sessions, not surprisingly, wrote the same letter to the governor of Washington. I understand, although I haven't seen it, that they did respond, as well.

If you look at all their work over the past three years—and it has only been three years—it indicates that there has been no statistically significant increase in youth use.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

In youth use?

[Anne McLellan]

Yes.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I find that hard to believe. I would like to see how they got those numbers.

[Anne McLellan]

Actually, the longitudinal studies that back that up are available. Colorado has done detailed work. I think they use a minimum of five different studies, some from their own state and some from the national level, in which they are looking at use. They, I would say, have a fairly sophisticated method of testing and double-testing, using sources from different places. I would think we could probably learn something from that.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

With respect to the black market, how has it been affected down there in these two states? Has there been a decrease in crime, for example? What has been the impact on the black market down there and the sale of illegal marijuana? Are there any stats there?

[Anne McLellan]

I think the illicit market continues to be a challenge in both states. They have a problem that Canada will not have, in that what you see there are people coming into Colorado—and Washington but certainly Colorado—and growing for diversion into other states.

Keep in mind Kansas. They haven't legalized. People saw the opportunity to go into Colorado, grow, and then move that product across the border, which is why state troopers in Kansas and other places are now at the border. They are starting to pick this stuff up. It's moving by the truckload, or it was.

That is a problem that we are not going to have in this country because we are legalizing on a national level. As I understand it, a large part—but not exclusively—of the illicit market in Colorado and Washington is the diversion to other states where it has not been legalized.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Interesting.

With respect to pricing in the legal and the black markets, did you look into that at all? Are there any differences or are they pretty equal?

[Anne McLellan]

Mark, you were in Colorado. I was in Washington. We have talked to Oregon. I think it's fair to say that Washington—I think it was Washington—out of the box went tax heavy. They weren't competing with the illicit market. Their numbers, when I was in Washington last year, were pretty staggering, in terms of the amount of purchase still in the illicit market. They learned a very serious lesson from that and moved very quickly to change the price point through taxation, in terms of product available for sale.

Price point here is going to be key in terms of what you see in the illicit market and how effective the legal market is at moving people over. Quality control, the guarantee that your product isn't cut with something like fentanyl, or whatever else is also important, but price point moves consumer demand. I think both retailers and the states have learned from experience that taxes cannot just be layered on, and retailers understand....

Costs are coming down in these states. It's a competitive marketplace. Costs have come down dramatically. I would say that, on any given day, in the legal market and the illegal market, cost per gram is pretty similar.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Is that right? Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Time is up.

Dr. Eyolfson, you have five minutes.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Dr. Ware, I particularly liked your comments about needing more research. We know that more research needs to be done on this, both on the recreational effects and on the medicinal effects. You gave a good example on this link between mental illness and psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. In my medical career, on more than one occasion, I've diagnosed schizophrenia in patients who had consumed a lot of cannabis only to find from their histories that in fact their psychiatric symptoms manifested before their use, and they were self-medicating. That being said, the plural of anecdote is not “data”, and we need more research on this.

Do you foresee, now that it's legal, that more researchers will be willing to take this on and there will be more willingness from funding agencies to fund research into this?

[Dr. Mark Ware]

Absolutely yes. I think we're already seeing that. We're already seeing large national funding agencies starting to look ahead at what the research requirements will be and already starting to plan for the mechanisms and the facilities to provide infrastructure and funding support for research on everything from public health all the way down to plant sciences.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

That's good to know. I'm also on the veterans affairs committee and we were at some medical facilities talking about post-traumatic stress disorder. Whenever we mentioned cannabis, they just looked uncomfortable and changed the subject. They just said, “No, we just can't touch it. We can't talk about it. There's no research on it down here.”

[Dr. Mark Ware]

I think that speaks to the second issue, which is the availability of funding. But you also asked if legalization would mean more researchers would be interested, and I think that probably does start to change the stigma associated with studying the substance. Up until now, if you were interested in cannabis...and certainly when I began 18 years ago, I was sort of the laughingstock of my research community because I wanted to study smoked cannabis. That's changed considerably now because people recognize the importance, and we're moving away from smoking.

I just challenge the comment that medical cannabis is primarily smoked. It's actually primarily being used in oil and edible formats now, and not being smoked. Some of these impressions that we have are being challenged by the realities.

I think researchers are more interested. There are new methods of access to cannabis products, and I think patients are interested in participating because they realize the importance, and that probably will extend to the general public as well. I think people want to contribute to the knowledge base.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you. That's good to hear.

Mr. Spratt, you mentioned some of the problems with our legislation. I understand those challenges, and I agree. Again, we need to balance safety but also the rights of everyone involved. This is analogous to what we struggled with when we introduced our medical assistance in dying. There were some who were very opposed to it. Others, once we passed it, thought it was far too restrictive.

As we were with medical assistance in dying, we're in basically uncharted territory, as it were. There are a few jurisdictions, but we're among the first. We're only the second nation on earth to do this on a national level. Although we see these problems, do you think that what we're doing here at this stage, with regard to where it is criminalized and where it is not, is at least a good first step?

[Michael Spratt]

It's a good first step. Unfortunately, the continued criminalization that you see in clause 8 and clause 9 of the bill will often run contrary to the purposes and principles of the bill, will reduce some of the benefits that are derived from the bill, and aren't supported by past history or research. Take, for example, the continued criminalization of youths who possess five grams or more of marijuana. I take it that's included because the government wants to discourage youths from possessing marijuana. Doing that through criminalization, as the last 100 years since the Opium Act has shown us, hasn't worked. If full criminalization of marijuana doesn't deter a youth from possessing marijuana, a half measure such as that won't either. A measure like that isn't going to deter a youth from possessing marijuana, and I gather that probably more liberal access to marijuana after this bill is certainly not going to do that.

At the same time, it imports many of the problems with wholesale criminalization, and it diverts resources. It allows the misuse of discretion. It allows the systemic discriminatory factors to be put in play. Ultimately, it's pretty expensive. The same is true when you're looking at the difference between illicit and licit marijuana, if “licit” is actually a word—

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

It actually is.

[Michael Spratt]

There we go.

I mean that sort of distinction: you know, the five plants versus four plants, or the individuals who go away for the weekend and their plant grows a centimetre taller and they're all of a sudden a criminal.

It's expensive, and it can be very cumbersome to deal with that distinction. That distinction is only necessary because there's a continued reliance on criminal sanctions to advance policy. I think I understand why there is some reluctance, but we've seen that this sort of criminalization doesn't work. There could be more benefit if that is rolled back out of the bill.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time's up.

Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.