Thank you for the invitation to speak to the House of Commons about this very important act, the issue of youth use, the age for legal possession, and the impact on our young Canadians.
Cannabis prohibition has been an abject failure. As the executive director of EFSDP, I want to see educational policy and reform come from a place of progressive change, where students, parents, teachers, health care professionals, and mental health providers work together to provide a quality of schooling that reflects a place where what is learned is lived and is based on solid scientific evidence, and where truth matters.
More and more, for a variety of reasons, it has become society's role to educate, and to provide support for parents and children. Educators have a responsibility to be esteem-builders. Bill C-45 has some good intentions, but the cannabis act will not prevent youth from using cannabis. It should not subject them to further harms from the law itself.
Educators understand that despite its increasing ubiquity, research suggests that young people's attitudes towards cannabis are ambiguous. Many have conflicting positions and negative attitudes towards its use. This is not surprising considering the complexity of the substance. Unlike alcohol and tobacco, two substances almost exclusively limited in purpose to recreational use, cannabis can be used both recreationally and medically, although the line between the two is blurred.
To increase the understanding about the issues cannabis can pose to the health and well-being of young people, drug reform educators believe we should be educating them not only about the substance's possible negative effects, but also its positive ones. This can be achieved using evidence-based, unbiased, and holistic information, where truth matters.
The ubiquity of cannabis is a major health issue. Youth need to gain factual knowledge about cannabis so that they are able to make informed decisions about cannabis and its use in order to mitigate possible harm. We agree with the task force that 18 is an appropriate age for legal use. However, some EFSDP members agree with the 2002 Senate report that 16 is also appropriate.
As a society, we need to remove many misconceptions that are perpetuated by eight decades of prohibition. Educators must find common ground. As some people continue to push the prohibitionist agenda, educators are becoming more aware that teens are more at risk from alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and opioids. Neuroscientist Marc Lewis wrote a book called Memoirs of an Addicted Brain. He discusses in detail how cannabinoids are natural brain chemicals. I quote:
The cannabinoid receptor system matures most rapidly, not during childhood, not during adulthood, but during adolescence. So it wouldn't be surprising if cannabinoid activity is meant to be functional during adolescence, more functional than any other period of the life span. As far as evolution is concerned, adolescents might well benefit from following their own grandiose thoughts, goals, and plans. By doing so, and by ignoring the weight of evidence - on sheer inertia - piled up against them, they would greatly amplify their tendency to explore, to try things, to imbue their plans with more confidence.... The evolutionary goals of adolescents are to become independent, to make new connections, and to find new territory, new social systems, and most of all, new mates. The distortions of adolescent thinking might be precisely posed to facilitate these goals.
Adolescents ignore most of what parents think, most of conventional wisdom, and are spellbound by their own ideas. They follow chains of logic that nobody else finds logical, and voice excessive allegiance to their own predictions about how things will turn out. Even when they're not stoned, adolescents live in a world of ideation of their own making and follow trains of thought to extreme conclusions, despite overwhelming evidence that they're just plain wrong.
In 2001, I was offered a position as a first nation administrator in northern British Columbia. Not only was this experience life altering, but it was one that made me realize how ordinary Canadian educators and citizens have no idea what misfortunes, tragedies, and adversities many indigenous young people experience by the time they reach adolescence, how many deaths, what abuse they endure, and what despair they feel. I met Dr. Maté, a well-known drug addiction expert and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and Hold On to Your Kids.
He said, about the despair first nation youth feel, the self-loathing plagues them, the barriers to a life of freedom and meaning they have to face, that it is the educator who must always remember this: Don’t ask why the drug, ask why the pain.
At the core of unresolved traumas passed from one generation to the next, along with social conditions that induce further hopelessness, I witnessed untold, multi-generational traumas in several aboriginal communities. Native history resonates in aboriginal youth with their brilliant art, their dances, their music, and their wisdom. Maté said when educators see their first nation peers, they witness “their humanity, grandeur, unspeakable suffering and strength”.
Cannabis law enforcement has been shown to be racially biased. The “from school to prison pipeline” is real. Jail cells cannot be the new classroom. Our aboriginal youth are suffering. We must stop targeting marginalized people of colour, and we must learn to understand trauma and its multiple impacts on human mentality and behaviour. I agree with Dr. Maté that “the best-meaning people can unwittingly re-traumatize those who can least bear the pain and loss”.
EFSDP's goal is to promote an alternative to failed, punitive drug policies. As hard as we try, we will never convince 100% of youth to say no 100% of the time. If we can clear up the underlying problems, there will be less incentive for young people to use drugs as a way of coping with the stresses they face.
Thank you, and I welcome your questions.