Health Committee on Sept. 11th, 2017

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Or 17, up to age 18. A youth can have up to five grams. We've heard quite clearly, five grams could be 10 to 15 joints, and I'm thinking of a 12-year old. That's grade 6. This is the top of the hierarchy. These are the old kids in public school. Have you had any conversations with educational professionals, or police, on how you will handle that? Do you think there's a possibility for diversion from 12-year-olds to 10-year-olds or 8-year-olds, because a lot of these younger kids look up to the older kids.

[Dale Tesarowski]

You ask very good questions. It's a real concern among our educators, but we have to keep in mind that we already have drug problems in our schools. One of the purposes behind this legislation is to mitigate that, or restrict it as much as possible. It may very well be that a province has to establish some kind of provincial scheme to address some of these issues and to change the limits so that we can better address those situations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you. Your time is up.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much for your testimony. There has been some suggestion that the use of cannabis is on the decline in Canada. The “Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs 2015 Survey” which is the most recent one, found that the prevalence of past year cannabis use was 12% in 2015. That was an increase of 1% over 2013, and while it hasn't changed in males, the significant increase in cannabis use by women went from 7% to 10%.

I come back to referencing that there's already a problem with youth, and I assume with prevalent rates of 21% of youth and 30% of young adults reporting using cannabis, those are typically Saskatchewan numbers as well. In your identification of problems in Saskatchewan, one of them was the cost of detecting impaired driving from drug use, the training required and the equipment you needed. I would have to assume that with a pretty steady state in cannabis use you already have those problem drivers on the road, so without this legislation, was nothing going to happen or would you not have had to move forward in Saskatchewan as others are?

I have a second question. I will ask it now and then let you respond.

We heard this morning that if a province or territory wasn't ready, the legislation does envision an e-commerce model where people could buy cannabis from registered licensed producers and they would have it delivered by Canada Post, the sort of current model that's there for medical marijuana. What would Saskatchewan's reaction be to that, where if you were unable to deliver legislation then people in Saskatchewan would still be able to procure it through a model that's not under your control? Also, for the poorer communities, the more outreach communities where it's going to be very hard to get distribution, they're going to need some kind of e-commerce model as well. You can't have a store in every hamlet.

Those are my two questions for Saskatchewan.

[Dale Tesarowski]

I'll address the second one first, because it's the easiest one.

An online mail-order type of process might very well be part of our response. It's certainly a process that works relatively effectively for medical marijuana users. Interestingly, one of the concerns that has been expressed to us has been that for a medical marijuana user, in a senior's home for example, the courier comes to the door. Everyone knows why they're there. One of their preferences might be to have a more anonymous approach and have the ability to perhaps go down to the pharmacy, for example, and pick up their product, or have the drug store deliver it, because that's a more normal kind of process, but it may very well be part of our retail solution.

The first question was with respect to problem drivers. First, this is all very new. Roadside detection for impaired drivers from an instrument or machine perspective is very much in its infancy in Canada. It's something we likely would have gone down the road for anyway, but when you exacerbate a problem by making it legal, then it simply makes it worse.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you for that. I'll have to go back and check my notes, but I think we might have heard testimony on this that other than an initial bump it doesn't typically change usage rates, so the problem you had is the problem you will have. I think that's how I heard the testimony.

I have a question for the hemp producers. It sounds like a pretty easy request. You have a plant that doesn't have THC in it. Were you given a reason why that wasn't included in schedule 2? That sounds like a pretty logical thing to have done.

[Keith Jones]

As we understand the history of the industrial hemp regulations, there was a precautionary principle applied to keep hemp within the CDSA schedule, just until there could be enough learning about why—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Was it a transitional issue for you, then?

[Keith Jones]

It seems to have been, and we've had some dialogue with Health Canada about it. The issue is—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I have one more question I want to ask. Thank you for that. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't a flat no and whether there was a valid reason for the flat no, but it's that there are many transitional issues here, and we've heard that we need to be careful.

[Keith Jones]

Yes.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Here is a last question, Philippe.

One of the biggest concerns in my riding that I've heard, not that I've heard a lot, is that cannabis is a gateway to harder drugs. I think I heard you say, however, that actually it's an exit strategy from harder addictions and more difficult drugs.

Could you elaborate on that a bit?

[Philippe Lucas]

That's correct. No one on this committee would dare say that cannabis is completely without harms, to be clear, but the level of dependence on cannabis and the severity of that dependence is limited to about 9% of the population who use it on a regular basis, and the severity is much less than you would see in terms of dependence levels with tobacco, alcohol, or otherwise.

More and more research is starting to suggest not only that it is it not a gateway drug—it's been disproved over the last 20 years that it's a stepping-stone drug—but that for many it can be an exit drug to problematic substance use.

In some cases it's very conscious. We have doctors prescribing cannabis deliberately for the treatment of chronic pain to deliberately reduce the use of opioids by patients. In other cases, though, it's completely subconscious, like what we're seeing in Colorado right now, the only state in the U.S. where you didn't see an increase in beer consumption last year, because of legalization efforts. It happens, then, at the population level.

I want to clarify that in Colorado there is research suggesting that youth use has gone down. It's moderate—it's about 12%—but it has gone down. I also want to mention, because you mentioned increased use of cannabis by women, that we are actually seeing women and seniors as being the largest group right now coming into the medical cannabis program. That alone may account for the statistical bump we're seeing, in terms of women using cannabis as well.

As you suggested earlier, we might see upon legalization a 2% to 4% increase initially that will flatline once again and go back to regular use. What you'll typically see is that those who are using will continue to use, but right now the law is not dissuading a lot of use. That's one of the challenges when we talk about youth right now: the law is not controlling black market distribution to children.

Let me add one more thing. I'm a former high school teacher. I once asked a grade 11 class, “What drugs can you access in the next 24 hours?” They listed off LSD, they listed off mushrooms, and they certainly listed off cannabis. The two toughest drugs for them to access in a 24-hour period were alcohol and tobacco.

Now, I'm not so old that I don't recall ways that we circumvented even those regulations, but once you take cannabis out of the black market, once you take a drug out of the black market, put in age restrictions and ID, and take the power of the black market away from distributing that drug, you can really impact rates of use. I think, then, that we can expect those youth rates to actually go down, post-legalization, despite the fact that it may seem counterintuitive in many ways.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I just want to correct the record. The places that have implemented legalized marijuana, such as Colorado, have seen a 32% increase in drug-impaired driving. I didn't want you to be left with the impression that there wasn't an increase.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That's not a point of order, but you have the floor.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

No, it's his turn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

It's my turn, and I get a full five minutes, correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That's correct.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

As a quick clarification, Mr. Jones and Mr. Rae in the hemp industry, you're here today to lobby that of course hemp be exempt from this legislation; you're concerned that the bill doesn't differentiate between hemp and marijuana. I'm trying to differentiate that as well. I understand that hemp does not have the THC content that marijuana has, but it is in fact a marijuana plant that has been bred to be a non-THC strain. It is, however, a marijuana plant, correct?

[Keith Jones]

The species of the plant is cannabis sativa. That's the plant species, but hemp has been created by plant breeders breeding out the THC content. It's the same species, but it's a fundamentally different product.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

It's high in CBDs as well—

[Keith Jones]

Yes.