Marijuana

Matthew Fox says he has two words for customers wanting to try Marvin’s Premium Candy Co. Cherry edibles.

“Good luck.”

Fox works behind the counter at the Realeaf Cannabis trailer on Highway 11, just north of Saskatoon. The business is owned by the Saulteaux First Nation.

If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a cannabis production company in Canada.

In the original version of his famous quote, British entrepreneur Richard Branson was highlighting the challenges and capital intensive nature of the airline industry. But a new report by consultancy firm Deloitte, due for release on Wednesday, paints a similar picture.

Legalization is pushing community mental health to the brink.

America’s ongoing marijuana-legalization experiment will have many consequences. That goes especially for the seriously mentally ill, a sliver of the adult population but overrepresented among the ranks of compulsive pot users. Treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is never easy; even when treatment is available, the seriously mentally ill often fail to comply. A schizophrenic who spends most of his days in a dark room smoking weed is not a clinically promising case.

State officials trumpet $1 billion in marijuana sales while downplaying health risks, surging youth use, and meager tax revenues.

Albany’s celebration of $1 billion in commercial marijuana sales earlier this year must have been music to Big Pot’s ears. “Let us celebrate the individuals, businesses, and communities in cannabis who drive our state’s economic engine,” exulted Felicia A. B. Reid, acting executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.

No one would expect state health commissioner James McDonald to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with, say, Altria or Philip Morris USA to celebrate the sale of tobacco products. But here was Reid, backing drugs known to cause addiction, IQ loss, psychosis, and schizophrenia, especially in young people.

It’s time for cannabis tourism to be taken seriously in Calgary and Alberta — in fact, in all of Canada.

But let’s focus on Calgary.

Coun. Kourtney Penner is introducing a notice of motion to allow for the sale of cannabis at festivals and events to streamline rules and bring them in line with those for alcohol. Selling cannabis at festivals and events is allowed in Alberta, but not in Calgary, because of how the original bylaw was written in 2018. The current bylaw says cannabis sales have to be tied to a provincial licence, which has to be done at a brick-and-mortar location.

Canadian governments make poor drug dealers.

Two new studies led by Ottawa researcher Dr. Daniel Myran link higher rates of death as well as “concerning increases” in new schizophrenia diagnoses to cannabis use disorder.

One study found that cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use disorder almost tripled in Ontario between 2006 and 2022, a period in which people seeking hospital treatment for cannabis use disorder increased by 270 per cent. The second study found that people who had been treated at hospitals for cannabis use disorder were at a significantly higher risk of death compared to the general population.

Linking any specific crime to pot use is difficult, but there certainly seem to be enough weed-related incidents to question whether legalization was wise.

New York City ended 2024 with a series of horrific subway incidents. Just days before Christmas, Debrina Kawam, a troubled New Jersey woman, was set on fire and burned to death by Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. Kawam had apparently been sleeping on an F train at the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island—a common gathering place for the homeless—when Zapeta-Calil used a lighter to ignite her clothing. Afterward, he reportedly sat on a bench to watch the flames.

Almost half of young adults in Canada reported using marijuana in the past year, according to a new report by the Department of Health.

Blacklock’s Reporter says the findings, part of the Canadian Cannabis Survey 2024, revealed cannabis use remains especially common among young working adults in Western provinces.

The risk of psychosis for teens using cannabis has become increasingly clear to researchers in Canada and abroad in recent years—and it’s tragically clear to Troy and Tara Neufeld of Westport, Ontario.

Their daughter, Mila, died by suicide in 2021 at the age of 18. What drove her to that point became evident little by little in the following weeks as the Neufelds spoke to Mila’s friends and read through her diary.