Evidence of meeting #67 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was legal.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:40 p.m.
Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
There's the manufacturer, Imperial Tobacco in the case of a tobacco product, and the brand name is Player's. There would be the manufacturer's name of the cannabis—
4:40 p.m.
Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
—yes, the licensed producer, and then the brand name, but controlled, because we don't want to see a brand of marijuana called “Everybody Does It”.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Dr. Hammond wants to say something.
Dr. Hammond? Do you want to make a comment?
4:40 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
The first thing I would say about plain packaging is that you can allow whatever product information you want. What you're doing is restricting the types of packaging elements that can cause problems.
I think it's very clear that this committee gets appropriate information on plain packaging. I've served as an expert witness in five different court cases on behalf of the Australian government and the U.K. government. Plain packaging has had a positive impact. The Australian government's own official evaluation has estimated that 100,000 fewer Australians smoke as a result of it.
With all respect to Mr. Hammoud, the arguments he is making have been forwarded by tobacco companies in court cases, and they have been rejected. Tobacco companies have challenged plain packaging in five separate legal rulings, and they have lost. Each of those rulings has affirmed the positive public health impact of plain packaging.
Second, there is no evidence that plain packaging has increased contraband sales. None. That includes numbers from the partner of KPMG, whom the tobacco companies hired to try to find evidence. KPMG took the extraordinary step of writing to the U.K. minister of health to state that the industry was misusing its numbers.
This committee, of course, will make the recommendations it sees fit, but it should be doing so on the proper evidence. I'm afraid that, with all due respect to Mr. Hammoud, those are false claims.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you to the witnesses.
Dr. Hammond, what does the research establish about the known health effects of cannabis? What do we know?
4:45 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
You will probably be hearing from medical doctors and others who are better positioned to answer that question. What I can tell you is that the scientific consensus is that it causes less population-level harm than tobacco and alcohol, but that should not be confused with its being harmless. Tobacco causes a range of harms to unborn children and, of course, there's impaired driving. There is a strong association with mental health among those who are susceptible, and exacerbating some of those problems. An estimate of the consequences in Canada says that about half of the deaths come from impaired driving, and about half come from respiratory issues related to smoking, and that's unique to the mode of administration.
That's a quick snapshot. I don't pretend to be a medical doctor, but I think that's a fair summary of the most recent evidence.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The task force concurs with that. They said quite clearly that cannabis is not known to have as serious health consequences as tobacco or alcohol. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's harmless, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't put appropriate warnings. If we are going to take a science-based, evidence-based approach to what the proper warning should be on this product, it starts with an understanding of exactly what we know about it.
Is cannabis known to be a carcinogen?
4:45 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
My knowledge is that there are no carcinogens in the product itself. Like smoking, most of the carcinogens come from combustion, when you light something on fire and inhale it. That's also true of tobacco products.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
4:45 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
I think the general consensus would be no, but the consensus would be that it does have addictive properties and abuse liability.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
What I understand is that the addictive qualities of cannabis are more akin to alcohol, where people can become dependent and can get substance use disorder. They can become dependent on alcohol, and they can become dependent on cannabis, both being mind-altering substances, as opposed to tobacco, which is known to be extremely physically addictive very quickly and very difficult to stop. Would that be a fair understanding of their relative addictive qualities?
4:45 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
I think that's fair to say. There are few things that compare with nicotine in terms of an addictive substance. Of course, it depends on how you use it. Lots of people use nicotine gum, and it has a very low abuse liability. When you smoke something, the mode of administration means that it gets into your bloodstream and into your brain more quickly.
In general, I concur with what you're saying.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The only people I know using nicotine gum are people trying to quit. I don't know too many people who start picking up nicotine gum and chewing it.
4:45 p.m.
Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
That's absolutely correct.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I was just going to turn to you, Ms. Beck. Can I ask you a question?
Bill C-45, ironically, will legalize dried flower, which is mainly ingested by smoking, and will leave illegal, for the moment anyway, edibles and other non-smokable products. Do you have a comment on that from a health point of view?
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
It is my understanding that in schedule 4, I think there are four or five items that will become immediately legal, including oil which can be vaped. But you're right, the edibles will come later. There are relative risks, as Dr. Hammond mentioned, in terms of how things are taken. Those will need to be communicated clearly to Canadians, because I think we have a big problem in that not a lot of people appreciate that smoke is smoke. There are perceptions that because cannabis is natural or organic, it's somehow less harmful than breathing in the smoke, and that's not the case.
I also wanted to speak to your earlier comment about comparing the two. Tobacco has a very powerful industry behind it and, as Melodie said at the top, it's the disease vector in this issue. For cannabis, we're just starting, and if we let them out of the gate the way the tobacco industry has operated, patterns of use can change with the branding and the promotion and the advertising and all of that, so we need to be very careful.
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
Also, pardon me. One other point is the co-use between tobacco and cannabis. What are the statistics here? It's one-third of cannabis users in Ontario actually mix tobacco with their cannabis, but they don't identify themselves as smokers. As you rightfully pointed out, nicotine is very addictive, so we're very concerned about this co-use of mixing them together, because tobacco burns better than cannabis so it's quite common to do that.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I'm not sure about the answer on this, but I'm not sure it's correct that oil will be allowed to be vaped under this bill, because I think there are other sections of the bill that prohibit the solvents that are often used. I'm not going to say that affirmatively, but I don't want to leave that comment out there. It's something we should look into.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The other thing I was going to say about the challenges of proper labelling is that it could be that cannabis should be labelled like tobacco. It could be it should be labelled like alcohol. It could be that it requires its own special and unique kind of approach, but I keep thinking of walking into a liquor store where there are tight regulations on the products. They're certainly not marketed toward children, but colours are allowed and there are descriptions on the back of wine bottles that sort of describe the general properties of the wine. Is that an inappropriate approach to take toward cannabis, given that it's not a carcinogenic probably, given that's it's not as addictive as nicotine, given its properties are quite similar to alcohol? Do you see problems with that?
This is to anybody who would like to answer.
