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5 years of legal marijuana is wreaking havoc on children and adults
In 2018, Canada’s federal government legalized the recreational use of cannabis. Two of the three goals that they used to justify this abrupt change were to improve public health, and to reduce access by children. This October, the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) released a study, looking at the impact that legalized cannabis has had, pointing to a dismal failure in accomplishing either of these goals.
Kids are getting harmed more often
The CMAJ study found that, in addition to an increased number of Canadians using cannabis, there has been a startling number of hospitalizations resulting from cannabis use. This includes a large increase in the number of poisonings for young children, who consumed edible forms of cannabis. CBC has reported that prior to legalization, there was an average of 2 hospitalizations per month for children under the age of 10 in Ontario, Alberta, and BC. That spiked to nearly 15 hospitalizations a month through 2020 and 2021, which is far higher than the 2.1 average for Quebec, where cannabis edibles are not legal.
Adult episodes are up too
One study looked at the connection between cannabis and hospitalizations for adults in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and BC, and found that there were a staggering 105,000 hospitalizations reported between 2015 and 2021, one third of which were for people aged 15 to 24. They broke the data up into three groups: pre-legalization, post-legalization with store restrictions, and post-legalization with commercialization. Although the rate of hospitalizations didn’t change much when cannabis was legal but tightly controlled, it increased in the third stage, with commercialization.
Other studies found a 20 percent increase in emergency department visits among youth in Ontario and Alberta, and increased emergency department visits due to cannabis-induced psychosis, and a doubling of “acute episodes of pregnancy care in which cannabis was present.”
The impact can be long-term, with cannabis users having a significantly increased risk of developing schizophrenia within three years.
Love laws, just not God’s laws
With all this data contradicting the intended goals of the legislation, one would expect the federal government to admit a need to reconsider its course. But that isn’t likely, unless this research is widely circulated and Canadians are willing to speak up to their elected representatives.
There is a glaring contradiction between our secular government’s concern for health when it came to the COVID virus, and how it is responding to the many immoral activities and choices that come with their own devastating health consequences. With COVID, our leaders were willing to undermine fundamental freedoms to minimize hospitalizations. Not so with marijuana use.
There are also health impacts from other sins like pornography, no-fault divorce, abortion (hurt happens not only to the child, but to the mother too), sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and, of course, euthanasia. When health could come as a result of obeying God’s commandments (which are good for our heart, soul, mind, and body – Ps. 119), our government isn’t all that interested in exploring what laws could help.
