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The purpose of this study was to examine the likelihood of driving after using cannabis, and of being a passenger with someone who is driving after using cannabis, in rural areas and non-rural areas before and after legalization. A multi-wave analysis of Canada's National Cannabis Survey was conducted using logistic regression with interactions to predict the prevalence of driving after using cannabis, and of being a passenger with someone who is driving after using cannabis, in relation to place of residence (rural or non-rural) and in the weeks and months before and after legalization. Three time points were compared: pre-legalization, two months following legalization and 1 year after legalization. At the national level, there are no significant differences between the predicted estimates of driving after using cannabis for those who live in rural and non-rural areas. However, when examining the impact of legalization, we found a significant increase in driving after using cannabis among rural residents directly following legalization. Furthermore, it was observed that this increase in driving after using cannabis returns to pre-legalization rates one year after legalization. By contrast, in the weeks and months following legalization, driving after using cannabis decreased among those living in non-rural areas, and slowly increased soon thereafter. No significant differences were observed, in either time period or group, in the prevalence of being a passenger with someone who is driving after using cannabis. The finding of significantly higher risk of driving after use of cannabis soon after legalization in rural areas suggests a need for more attention to address immediate concerns for public safety. The increased potential for traffic injuries and deaths in other jurisdictions contemplating legalization supports the call for more and better targeted prevention efforts in rural communities that have far too often been overlooked and under-served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges the assumptions underlying the shared federal, provincial, and territorial goals of reducing criminal involvement in the drug trade and preventing substance use by youth. These official government objectives, it is argued, reflect a harmful tendency that continues the tradition of neglecting decades of sociological research on the efficiency of informal sources of control. Rather than continue to prioritize prevention, consistent evidence-based policy development for cannabis requires articulation of more informed and realistic goals of harm reduction. New educational initiatives need to build on informal controls that more effectively regulate responsible substance use behaviour. Sommaire : Cet article remet en question les hypotheses sous-tendant les objectifs communs des gouvernements federal, provinciaux et territoriaux qui consistent a diminuer l'activite criminelle dans le trafic de la drogue et a prevenir la toxicomanie chez les jeunes. Nous soutenons que ces objectifs gouvernementaux officiels refletent la tendance nefaste qui persiste dans la tradition de negliger des decennies de recherche sociologique sur l'efficacite de sources de controle informelles. Plutot que de continuer a faire de la prevention une priorite, l'elaboration d'une politique sur le cannabis coherente et fondee sur des donnees probantes requiert la definition d'objectifs de la reduction des mefaits qui soient mieux informes et plus realistes. De nouvelles initiatives educatives doivent s'appuyer sur des formes de controle informelles qui regissent plus efficacement un comportement de toxicomanie responsable., Introduction The Government of Canada's official objectives of legalizing cannabis are two-fold: reducing criminal involvement in the sale of cannabis; and reducing its availability to youth. Research shows, however, that [...]

In 2018, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize the use and supply of cannabis for non-medical purposes. The official primary objectives of the government are protecting public health, restricting access by youth, and reducing illicit drug market activity. The mandate of protecting health and safety shifts the focus from justifying punitive responses to addressing increasing rates of use and related risk behaviours such as driving after cannabis use (DACU). To shed more light on DACU through comparison of data immediately before and after legalization in the Canadian experience, we conducted a multi-wave analysis of the National Cannabis Survey. With particular attention to the influence of gender on perceptions and behaviour of youth and young adults, our findings (reassuringly) suggest there have been no measurable increases in self-reported rates of DACU. Whereas gender is a reliably significant predictor, with DACU being far more common among males, we also found that females in this age group are just as likely to report having been as a passenger of a driver who recently used cannabis. The findings are interpreted with reference to research on education and prevention, and gendered variation in peer-based harm reduction initiatives for youth and young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To critically investigate the extent of normalisation of the use of cannabis by undergraduate students. To examine the extent of peer accommodation, this paper focuses on attitudes of students who abstain. It sheds light on social meanings of the practice by exploring non-users' reasons for abstaining in addition to their attitudes, perceptions and experiences of use among their peers. Methods: Respondents were recruited to participate in interviews through an online survey of undergraduate students in social science classes at three Canadian universities. Findings: Peer accommodation of the use of cannabis requires that users exercise due caution and discretion and be respectful of the choices of non-users not to use. Non-users' attitudes, however, still reflect longstanding cultural assumptions about drug use as a deviant behaviour. Attitudes towards the use of cannabis reflect norms and expectations about gender among other culturally constructed social statuses and roles. Conclusions: Future research should continue to investigate nuances of the differentiated normalisation process. A better understanding of the cultural transformation of cannabis, and other drugs in common use by youth, requires more exploration of the emerging social context and attitudes of users and non-users of the drug.

This research focuses on the qualitatively descriptive accounts of drug-related violent incidents drawn from a treatment sample of 571 substance abuse clients in Ontario. Nearly half (n = 269) had experienced at least one violent incident in the past year, and 91% had used one or more substances prior to the most recent episode. The classification of the explicitly drug-related violent events (n = 176), based on Goldstein's tripartite model, is its first application in an adult drug treatment sample. Although respondents were not criminal offenders, and interpersonal violence related to psychopharmacological effects predominated, economic or systemic linkages related to drug scarcity and the drug market were implicated in one fifth of all occurrences. Alcohol and cocaine were the substances most implicated in all three aspects of the model. Since a drug treatment sample is a high-risk group for violence, interventions that raise awareness of potential for violence linked to not only intoxication but also scarcity conflicts and illicit drug market involvement are warranted. Since most violence occurs in the community, such initiatives may benefit those in treatment and serve as an important public health strategy.

Contrasting the official harm reduction aims of Canada's 10-year national drug strategy with the actual evolution of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the authors find little evidence of harm reduction, and much of sustained and punitive prohibition. The example of the criminal sanctions currently being applied to cannabis possession offences serves to illustrate the limits of what can be achieved in reducing the impact of criminalization when the fundamental ban on personal use and access is retained. Theoretically informed by constructionist analyses of the styles and strategies of social problems discourse, a moral basis of drug use entitlement is expounded from which rational reform might be more fruitfully argued. Despite its official mandate in Canada to develop more pragmatic drug policy alternatives, the harm reduction movement, posing public health solutions based on empirical analysis, is nonetheless needful of a rhetorical foundation by which to denounce prohibition as a morally objectionable intervention in the private lives of individuals.

Abstract Background An important challenge in conducting social research of specific relevance to harm reduction programs is locating hidden populations of consumers of substances like cannabis who typically report few adverse or unwanted consequences of their use. Much of the deviant, pathologized perception of drug users is historically derived from, and empirically supported, by a research emphasis on gaining ready access to users in drug treatment or in prison populations with higher incidence of problems of dependence and misuse. Because they are less visible, responsible recreational users of illicit drugs have been more difficult to study. Methods This article investigates Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) as a method of recruiting experienced marijuana users representative of users in the general population. Based on sampling conducted in a multi-city study (Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver), and compared to samples gathered using other research methods, we assess the strengths and weaknesses of RDS recruitment as a means of gaining access to illicit substance users who experience few harmful consequences of their use. Demographic characteristics of the sample in Toronto are compared with those of users in a recent household survey and a pilot study of Toronto where the latter utilized nonrandom self-selection of respondents. Results A modified approach to RDS was necessary to attain the target sample size in all four cities (i.e., 40 'users' from each site). The final sample in Toronto was largely similar, however, to marijuana users in a random household survey that was carried out in the same city. Whereas well-educated, married, whites and females in the survey were all somewhat overrepresented, the two samples, overall, were more alike than different with respect to economic status and employment. Furthermore, comparison with a self-selected sample suggests that (even modified) RDS recruitment is a cost-effective way of gathering respondents who are more representative of users in the general population than nonrandom methods of recruitment ordinarily produce. Conclusions Research on marijuana use, and other forms of drug use hidden in the general population of adults, is important for informing and extending harm reduction beyond its current emphasis on 'at-risk' populations. Expanding harm reduction in a normalizing context, through innovative research on users often overlooked, further challenges assumptions about reducing harm through prohibition of drug use and urges consideration of alternative policies such as decriminalization and legal regulation.

Aims: To critically investigate the extent of normalisation of the use of cannabis by undergraduate students. To examine the extent of peer accommodation, this paper focuses on attitudes of students who abstain. It sheds light on social meanings of the practice by exploring non-users’ reasons for abstaining in addition to their attitudes, perceptions and experiences of use among their peers.Methods: Respondents were recruited to participate in interviews through an online survey of undergraduate students in social science classes at three Canadian universities.Findings: Peer accommodation of the use of cannabis requires that users exercise due caution and discretion and be respectful of the choices of non-users not to use. Non-users’ attitudes, however, still reflect longstanding cultural assumptions about drug use as a deviant behaviour. Attitudes towards the use of cannabis reflect norms and expectations about gender among other culturally constructed social statuses and roles.Conclusions: Future research should continue to investigate nuances of the differentiated normalisation process. A better understanding of the cultural transformation of cannabis, and other drugs in common use by youth, requires more exploration of the emerging social context and attitudes of users and non-users of the drug. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]