Citation

Lake S, Kerr T. Int. J. Health Policy Manag. 2016; 6(5): 285-287.

Affiliation

Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Kerman University of Medical Sciences and Health)

DOI

10.15171/ijhpm.2016.124

PMID

28812816

Abstract

A recent editorial in this journal provides a summary of key economic, social, and public health considerations of the forthcoming legislation to legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana in Canada. As our government plans to implement an evidence-based public health framework for marijuana legalization, we reflect and expand on recent discussions of the public health implications of marijuana legalization, and offer additional points of consideration. We select two commonly cited public concerns of marijuana legalization - adolescent usage and impaired driving - and discuss how the underdeveloped and equivocal body of scientific literature surrounding these issues limits the ability to predict the effects of legalization. Finally, we discuss the potential for some potential public health benefits of marijuana legalization - specifically the potential for marijuana to be used as a substitute to opioids and other risky substance use - that have to date not received adequate attention.

Keywords: Cannabis impaired driving


© 2017 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Language: en

Keywords

Canada; Health Impact; Marijuana Legalization; Public Health