Pubdate: Wed, 18 Nov 2015
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Giuseppe Valiante
Page: A12

CANADA CAN LEARN FROM U.S. POT EXPERIENCE

The new federal government should proceed slowly with changing the
country's drug laws, says the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse,
which has released a report about the United States' experience
legalizing cannabis.

Representatives with the centre, which is funded by Health Canada, met
with officials from the two U.S. states that have legalized pot for
personal use - Colorado and Washington - to learn about what mistakes
to avoid.

Rebecca Jesseman, senior adviser for the centre, said the Canadian
addiction experts were given one key message during their visit south
of the border: Take your time.

"They said to start incrementally and don't move too quickly" on
marijuana legalization, she said.

"And make sure your decisions and your actions are informed by the
best possible evidence available because there are going to be
unanticipated consequences."

Colorado learned that lesson while trying to regulate non-smoked
marijuana products, known as edibles.

Authorities quickly realized that while the state regulated the amount
of marijuana allowed in a single dose, it failed to restrict the
number of doses allowed in food portions.

"So you had single brownies containing multiple doses of THC," she
said. THC is the main component of marijuana that causes the high.

"Now they changed the law and then the producers had to change their
packaging and (producers) even told us they wanted a more restrictive
approach from the beginning."

Representatives from the substance-abuse centre, as well as other
Canadian health experts and members of the RCMP, met with U.S.
regulators, law-enforcement officials and marijuana producers as well
as advocates for and against legalization.

Stores began selling recreational marijuana in Colorado on Jan. 1,
2014, and in Washington on July 8, 2014.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during the recent election campaign
that he wanted to legalize marijuana in order to restrict its access
to children, reduce the drug market share of organized criminals and
lessen the burden on the country's justice system.

Jesseman said that in order for the government to monitor the success
or failure of its pot policies, the country needs better baseline data
on current drug habits in order to compare the figures with data
collected after marijuana is legalized.

"There are questions that Colorado and Washington can't answer because
there wasn't any baseline data," Jesseman said. "The greater the
extent of work that can be done in advance the better."

While there is a lot of sound, scientific data going back years on the
harmful effects of marijuana on the developing brains of people under
25, there are important gaps in research, said doctor Amy
Porath-Waller, director of research and policy at the substance-abuse
centre.
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