The decriminalization of cannabis in Canada has contributed to a decrease in altercations between the nation’s youth and its police force, as indicated by data released this past spring.
These observations, which were disseminated in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence in April, indicate that the half-decade-old marijuana law in Canada “correlated with considerable declines in both male and female police-recorded cannabis-related transgressions” among individuals aged 12 to 17.
By analyzing police records from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2021, investigators from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found a daily rate of 4.04 incidents among young females, reflecting a 62.1% drop, and 12.42 daily infractions among young males, marking a decrease of 53%.
Canada’s Cannabis Act, which legalized recreational marijuana use for adults 18 and older, was officially implemented in October 2018.
“The data implies that the Cannabis Act’s influence on diminishing cannabis-related juvenile offenses is sustained, which aligns with the Act’s aim of reducing cannabis-related criminalization among young people and its impact on the Canadian criminal justice system,” the researchers asserted in their closing remarks.
The researchers further clarified that they “found no correlation between cannabis legalization and the occurrence of property or violent crimes.”
In a summary of the report, NORML included a statement by the researchers: “The Cannabis Act correlated with enduring and considerable declines of about 50 percent to 60 percent in nationwide trends of male and female police-reported youth cannabis-related criminal incidents during roughly a three-year period post-legalization.… Given that involvement with the police and Canadian criminal justice system for cannabis-related criminal incidents can create significant societal and individual harm for young people, it is logical to infer that our findings suggest a benefit linked with the enactment of the Cannabis Act.”
The researchers also mentioned that they had “previously established that the 2018 Canadian Cannabis Act, permitting youth to have up to 5 g dried cannabis or equivalent for personal use/distribution, was connected with short-term (76 days) post-legalization reduction in police-reported cannabis-related crimes among young people.”
The observations align with another recent research, also published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, revealing that the decriminalization of recreational marijuana use and cannabis sales in Canada did not cause a surge in car accidents.
“Neither the CCA [Canadian Cannabis Act] nor the NCS [number of cannabis stores per capita] correlates with simultaneous changes in (traffic safety) outcomes. … Throughout the first year of the CRUL’s [cannabis recreational use laws] adoption in Toronto, no significant shifts in crashes, number of road victims and KSI [all road users killed or severely injured] were noted,” the study reported.
A different study, from 2021, echoed these findings, discovering “no evidence that the execution of the Cannabis Act was linked with notable alterations in post-legalization trends of all drivers’ traffic-injury ED visits or, more specifically, youth-driver traffic-injury ED appearances.”
“Considering the mandate of Canada’s Cannabis Act for the Canadian Parliament to evaluate the public health effects of the Act no later than 2023, the results of this study can provide factual data for the Canadian evaluation of the balance of harms and benefits, as well as for other global jurisdictions contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of cannabis legalization policies,” the study stated, as referenced by NORML.
With the legalization of marijuana now embedded, some Canadians have redirected their attention to the next phase of drug reform. Earlier this year, campaigners initiated a petition urging legislators to legalize psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic use.
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