Cannabis / : Cannabis

All cannabis for medical use must be obtained from a licensed producer authorized by Health Canada.* According to recent statistics from Health Canada, 37,884 Canadians are authorized to possess dried marijuana for medical purposes.7 The evidence on the efficacy and effectiveness of cannabis for medical purposes has been the focus of recent reviews.8,9 Past-Year Use of Cannabis in Canada Figure 1. [...] General population (age 15+): The Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS) reported that the prevalence of past-year use of cannabis among the general population was 10.6%10 in 2013, which is down from the 11.4% reported in the 2008 Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey (CADUMS 2008).11 * On March 21, 2014, the Federal Court in BC granted a temporary injunction that allows in [...] The prevalence of daily or almost daily cannabis use did not significantly differ between youth and adults in 2013.10 Provincial differences: The provincial prevalence of past-year cannabis use ranged from 8.1% in Saskatchewan to 13.3% in British Columbia in 2013. [...] Definitive conclusions regarding the impact of these policy changes on cannabis use and the cannabis market are not yet possible due to the recency of policy changes and variations in the scope and quality of data collected.** Associated Harms Morbidity Hospital administrative data provide an important measure of the impact of substance use on the healthcare system. [...] Data collected by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) indicate that the rate of hospital separations (defined as the departure of an inpatient from hospital, owing either to discharge†† or death) where cannabis was recorded as the primary diagnosis doubled between 1996 and 2005, from 14 to 31 per 100,000.17 Between 2006 and 2011, cannabis increased as a reason for the use of hospi