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Background: We previously reported that the 2018 Canadian Cannabis Act, allowing youth to possess up to 5 g dried cannabis or equivalent for personal use/sharing, was associated with short-term (76 days) post-legalization reduction in police-reported cannabis-related crimes among youth. To establish whether the change might be sustained, we now estimate this association during a much longer time period by including an additional three years of post-legalization data., Methods: Using national daily police-reported criminal incident data from January 1, 2015-December 31, 2021 from the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR-2), the study employed Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) time series models to assess the associations between legalization and youth (12-17 years) cannabis-related offenses (male, n = 34,508; female, n = 9529)., Results: Legalization was associated with significant reductions in both male and female police-reported cannabis-related offenses: females, 4.04 daily incidents [95% confidence interval (CI), 3.08; 5.01], a 62.1% decrease [standard error (se), 34.3%]; males, 12.42 daily offenses (95% CI, 8.99; 15.86), a reduction of 53.0% (se, 22.7%). There was no evidence of associations between cannabis legalization and patterns of property or violent crimes., Conclusions: Results suggest that the impact of the Cannabis Act on reducing cannabis-related youth crimes is sustained, supporting the Act's objectives to reduce cannabis-related criminalization among youth and associated effects on the Canadian criminal justice system., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest This research was supported in part by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant (PJT 180292) awarded to the first author (RCC). In relation to the manuscript, the authors have no competing interests to declare., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The Canadian government legalized non-medical cannabis use by adults in October 2018 to minimize associated harms and redirect profits from criminals. In October 2019, a wider array of products, including edibles, was legalized, with entry into the legal market beginning in December., Data and Methods: Three quarters (the first quarters of 2018 and 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2020) of the National Cannabis Survey were used to examine changes in cannabis use (overall use and daily or almost daily (DAD) use), consumption methods, products and sources., Results: Cannabis use in the past three months was higher in late 2020 (20.0%) than in 2019 (17.5%) and 2018 (14.0%), and this was particularly the case among: females (for whom rates rose to equal male rates for the first time), adults aged 25 and older, and some provinces. Similarly, DAD use, at 7.9% also increased. Higher percentages of Canadians reported getting at least some of their cannabis from legal sources or growing it, and fewer were relying on friends and family or illegal sources in 2020., Discussion: This study spans three years-from before legalization to about two years after. It provides a more complete picture of the law's impact on cannabis use and related behaviours, given the more established legal cannabis industry better equipped to compete with the black market on price, convenience and selection. Findings demonstrate that change is continuing, and, as before, some cautions and assurances remain. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cannabis use continues to be difficult to measure. Monitoring remains important, given the ever-changing provincial retail landscapes; the introduction of new products; and the pressure by the industry to remove or adjust potency limits, and allow widespread delivery, farm-gate sales and cannabis lounges.

Introduction: In October 2018, Canada legalized the nonmedical use of cannabis for adults. The aim of our study was to present a more recent temporal pattern of cannabis-related injuries and poisonings found in the electronic Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (eCHIRPP) database and provide a descriptive summary of the injury characteristics of cannabis-related cases captured in a nine-year period., Methods: We conducted a search for cannabis-related cases in the eCHIRPP database reported between April 2011 and August 2019. The study population consisted of patients between the ages of 0 and 79 years presenting to the 19 selected emergency departments across Canada participating in the eCHIRPP program. We calculated descriptive estimates examining the intentionality, external cause, type and severity of cannabis-related cases to better understand the contextual factors of such cases. We also conducted time trend analyses using Joinpoint software establishing the directionality of cannabis-related cases over the years among both children and adults., Results: Between 1 April 2011, and 9 August, 2019, there were 2823 cannabis-related cases reported in eCHIRPP, representing 252.3 cases/100 000 eCHIRPP cases. Of the 2823 cannabis-related cases, a majority involved cannabis use in combination with one or more substances (63.1%; 1780 cases). There were 885 (31.3%) cases that involved only cannabis, and 158 cases (5.6%) that related to cannabis edibles. The leading external cause of injury among children and adults was poisoning. A large proportion of cannabis-related cases were unintentional in nature, and time trend analyses revealed that cannabis-related cases have recently been increasing among both children and adults. Overall, 15.1% of cases involved serious injuries requiring admission to hospital., Conclusion: Cannabis-related cases in the eCHIRPP database are relatively rate, a finding that may point to the fact that mental and behavioural disorders resulting from cannabis exposure are not generally captured in this surveillance system and the limited number of sites found across Canada. With Canada's recent amendments to cannabis regulations, ongoing surveillance of the health impacts of cannabis will be imperative to help advance evidence to protect the health of Canadians., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Imagine a Minister for Addictions, not only for individuals we criminalize and stigmatize as "drug addicts" but for us all. So misunderstood is addiction, so scant is our public discourse about its scientific basis and so deep is the despair wrought by its present spread that we require a government reboot., (Copyright © 2018 Longwoods Publishing.)

This article describes the shortage of generic injectable medications in Canada that affected hospitals in 2012. It traces the events leading up to the drug shortage, the causes of the shortage, and the responses by health administrators, pharmacists, and ethicists. The article argues that generic drug shortages are an ethical problem because health care organizations and governments have an obligation to avoid exposing patients to resource scarcity. The article also discusses some options governments could pursue in order to secure the drug supply and thereby fulfill their ethical obligations.

During the relatively short history of class proceedings in Canada, developers and manufacturers of medical devices and pharmaceuticals ("medical products"), including medical products designed for patients with diabetes, have found themselves at the receiving end of a significant number of class action claims. As a result, medical products litigation has become the battleground for some of the most significant developments in Canadian class actions law. This article provides a broad overview of some of the most significant developments. The authors pay particular attention to developments regarding the test for class action certification and consider whether high-profile dismissals of certification motions represent a trend toward raising the threshold for plaintiffs seeking to obtain certification of a proposed class action. The authors also consider a decision arising out of a lengthy class action common issues trial in which the medical device company was victorious. In the authors' view, the class action pendulum in Canada, particularly as it relates to medical products claims, remains in motion. It behooves all affected players to keep their eye on this ball with rapt attention to see where it may move next., (© 2013 Diabetes Technology Society.)

This paper is a sociological examination of policies and practices in Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Division (MMAD) that presume the illicit intentions and inherent "guilt" of medical cannabis users, hampering safe access to a medicine to which many are legally entitled, and raising doubts about this federal programme's overall effectiveness and constitutional legitimacy. Beginning with a brief historical overview of Canada's federal medical cannabis programme, this paper examines the failure of the MMAD to meet the needs of many sick and suffering Canadians through Hunt's [Hunt, A. (1999). Governing morals: A social history of moral regulation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press] work on moral regulation and Wodak's [Wodak, A. (2007). Ethics and drug policy. Psychiatry, 6(2), 59-62] critique of "deontological" drug policy strategies. I then cite Tupper's [Tupper, K. W. (2007). The globalization of ayahuasca: Harm reduction or benefit maximization? International Journal of Drug Policy, doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.11.001] argument that shifting to a generative metaphor that constructs certain entheogenic substances as potentially useful "tools" rather than regulating them through inherently moralistic prohibitionist policies would better serve public health, and incorporate Young's [Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press] theories of domination and oppression to examine the rise of community-base medical cannabis dispensaries as "new social movements". First-hand accounts by medical cannabis patients, federally funded studies, and internal Health Canada communication and documents suggest that current federal policies and practices are blocking safe access to this herbal medicine. The community-based dispensary model of medical cannabis access is a patient-centered "new social movement" that mitigates the stigmatization and moral regulation of their member-clients by creating opportunities for engagement, empowerment and joint knowledge creation. In light of ongoing Charter challenges and patient criticism, the survival of this federal programme will depend on the government's ability to shift away from policies based on the oppression and moral regulation, and towards consequentialist policies that balance harm reduction and benefit maximization. The effectiveness of such an approach is exemplified by the success of the community-based dispensary model which is currently producing more peer-reviewed research and supplying medical cannabis to a far greater number of patients than Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Division.

The use of genetically modified (GM) plants to synthesize proteins that are subsequently processed, regulated and sold as pharmaceuticals challenges two very different established regulatory frameworks, one concerning GM plants and the other covering the development of biotechnology-derived drugs. Within these regulatory systems, specific regulations and guidelines for plant-made pharmaceuticals (PMPs)--also referred to as plant-derived pharmaceuticals (PDPs)--are still evolving. The products nearing commercial viability will ultimately help to road test and fine-tune these regulations, and might help to reduce regulatory uncertainties. In this review, we summarize the current state of regulations in different countries, discuss recent changes and highlight the need for further regulatory development in this burgeoning, new industry. We also make the case for the harmonization of international regulations.

The rapid development of stereospecific analytical, synthetic, and preparative methods has profoundly changed the prospects for development and application of chiral medicinal products. This has induced regulatory agencies, e.g., in Canada, the EEC, Japan, and the United States, to prepare guidance on this subject. The present draft documents are discussed, with emphasis on the two most important cases: (1) New racemates: How many extra requirements are justified? (2) Development of a single enantiomer from an approved racemate: how few are acceptable? At the moment the opportunities for early harmonisation are favourable and the formulation of one international guidance document seems feasible.