If the consumption of jar increased slightly in Quebec among the oldest, it also decreased among those under 18. The taboo linked to consumption dissipates like the smoke of a joint.
On October 17, 2018, a long line of curious people crowded in front of the brand new boutique of the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) on rue Sainte-Catherine, one of the first three to open in Montreal.
Geoffrey Côté remembers the date, but rather because he was in the studio recording a music album. As for so many other Quebecers, the legalization of cannabis has changed almost nothing for this father.
It’s just changed that I can have cannabis products that I like on my street corner […] rather than calling a guy who comes to my house and who has two kinds on him and you have no choice in taking that.
Geoffrey Côté, cannabis user
Certainly, he misses the ritual of cracking pots with friends before smoking, now that he buys pre-rolled joints. But knowing the concentration of THC (the psychoactive agent in cannabis) of what he is smoking is enough.
But does he feel like more cannabis is being smoked now that it’s so easy to get? “Yes, but it remains a small joint in the evening, when we go to see a show or after a dinner with friends,” summarizes Geoffrey Côté.
Barely more smokers
An impression supported by data from theQuebec survey on cannabisa survey conducted by the Institute of Statistics of Quebec every year (except in 2020) since legalization, to the great pleasure of researchers, who cruelly lacked data to know by who, when, where and how cannabis was smoked in Quebec.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
The Dr Didier Jutras-Aswad, head of the psychiatry department at CHUM and contributor to theInvestigation
“The catastrophe in the making [avec la légalisation]it did not materialize”, first underlines the Dr Didier Jutras-Aswad, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM) and contributor to theInvestigation.
Preliminary data from the most recent edition of the survey, released last week, reveals that 17% of 15-year-old Quebecers had used cannabis in the previous year, a figure slightly increasing compared to the first edition, in 2018. where this rate was measured at 14%.
“De facto” legalization
This therefore means that approximately 21% more Quebecers, all ages combined, would have consumed cannabis in the last year compared to the year preceding legalization, despite the fact that the substance is now widely available over the counter. ladder. The phenomenon does not at all surprise the experts consulted.
“Anyone who wanted to have one could have one. It was extremely accessible, it was a de facto decriminalized substance,” recalls Jean-Sébastien Fallu, professor of psychoeducation at the University of Montreal and editor-in-chief of the specialized journal Drugs, health and society.
He insists: focusing only on the variation in the number of cannabis users would be a bad way to assess the real impacts of legalization. “There is no direct link between the number of people who consume and problems” in society, he recalls.
What’s more, new cannabis users are among the oldest, and therefore less at risk, he adds.
“Unfounded” fears
In terms of public health, there is also little improvement, underlines the Dr Didier Jutras-Aswad, although this was one of the main objectives of the legalization of cannabis.
But a “taboo has been erased” for five years for occasional cannabis smokers, raises Geoffrey Côté. “Some people around me say f*** each other, we tell everyone, it’s like coming out,” he says, laughing.
Hard to quantify, the “social acceptability” of cannabis remains a “not negligible, even fundamental” aspect of legalization, insists Jean-Sébastien Fallu.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jean-Sébastien Fallu, professor of psychoeducation at the University of Montreal and editor-in-chief of the specialized journal Drugs, health and society
Stigma is associated with lots of negative consequences: we feel ashamed, we are distressed, we are anxious, all factors of consumption.
Jean-Sébastien Fallu, professor of psychoeducation at the University of Montreal and editor-in-chief of the specialized journal Drugs, health and society
At the Association of Police Directors of Quebec, where fears were expressed about the increase in the workload of officers before legalization, we agree that these “were unfounded” .
As for the number of arrests of drivers for abilities impaired by cannabis, “it’s not that worrying, if we’re just talking about cannabis,” agrees its general director, Didier Deramond.
The latter emphasizes that concerns persist about the very high level of THC in certain products for sale on the illegal market. The misappropriation of cannabis production permits for medical purposes by organized crime also continues to worry police forces.
“Few” scientific advances
As for the state of knowledge on cannabis, one of the pillars of legalization, what have we learned over the past five years about what it contains, for example?
“Little”, apart from the fact that there is a significant variation in THC in the products sold at the SQDC, of the order of 8%, reveals the Dr Didier Jutras-Aswad, despite everything, is optimistic for the future. “There are studies, but they are, in general, small and on very specific products, so it is really very incomplete and not yet very robust to answer basic questions,” he explains. .
Everyone agrees, even after five years, that it is still too early to fully understand the effects of the legalization of cannabis in all spheres of society.