CANNABIS CULTURE – The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) is investing $2 million to address research gaps in the effects of cannabis on mental health among diverse populations of Canada.
“To gain a clear understanding of the mental health impacts of cannabis use in Canada, we must include representations from all areas of the population—particularly from those communities who are frequently overlooked in research,” said MHCC president and CEO Michel Rodrigue.
In total there are 18 research projects to address research gaps in the impacts of cannabis for individuals with a history of trauma, cannabis use among individuals with substance use disorders who identify as 2SLGBTQ+, and improved pathways to care for young people in racialized and Indigenous communities with emerging psychosis.
“I think it’s fair to say that the [MHCC] research on cannabis and mental health is making a really unique contribution because it’s so focused on the needs of diverse populations,” says Dr. Mary Bartram, MHCC Director of Mental Health and Substance Use. “And because it’s been really guided by what we call lived—and sometimes living—experience of cannabis and mental health. And that’s a core principle of the [MHCC] and, frankly the mental health and substance abuse sectors to really listen to the experiences of people who are having substance use concerns and mental health concerns.”
In 2018, the Canadian government invested $10 million to research links between cannabis and mental health. Overall, there are 40 studies, and these 18 are the last of that batch to be funded. Bartram says, “It’s really part of the effort to reduce concerns about how legalization creates mental health problems, particularly among youth.”
“A lot of projects are what’s called qualitative research,” says Bartram. These consist of interviews versus clinical studies where a lot of front-end work is needed to get all the pieces in place like approval to use cannabis for clinical trials.
Dr. Cecilia Benoit is a scientist at the Center for Addictions Research of British Columbia and is a principal investigator for one of the 18 studies. Benoit’s study will be a youth-led development of lower-risk cannabis use guidelines. Benoit says the individuals who are in the focus groups will be youths ages 14 to 28, who use to use and don’t now, and some who are still users.
“Youths will be looking at the guidelines that are available for all kinds of substances, including the guidelines for adult use of cannabis in Canada,” says Benoit who will be working with a Youth Advisory Group at the Center for Youth Health in Victoria. “We’re coming up with some suggested guidelines that would be youth-specific, and then we’re going to survey youth across the country and about their cannabis use and about what they think of these revised guidelines.”
“It won’t be an interview, or kind of a personal survey about their own experience with drug use, pros and cons, that kind of thing, even though they may speak about that. But it’s more asking their expertise, or experiential knowledge, about what they think guidelines should look like after looking at those that are available for adults,” says Benoit. “It really will be up to the youth themselves. Most of the time the youth are never consulted about these kinds of things.”
“I see it as parallel to having good guidelines around sexual activity or other behaviors that people are involved in, but they often hide them because people think that they are not condoning them,” says Benoit. “So, in this case, I think it’s really important to be realistic and allow the youths themselves to tell us what they think guidelines should look like for their age group. And I think could be very helpful going forward in thinking about just a realistic way of thinking about drug use in general. Not just experts making the decisions, but also the users themselves being part of decision making.”
To fund the research, the MHCC is partnering with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Consortium for Early Intervention in Psychosis, the Schizophrenia Society of Canada Foundation, and Veterans Affairs Canada.
Bartram says they should be able to get information and preliminary results coming by the end of the year. Speaking on other doors that this research may open, Bartram is aware of a lot of the emerging evidence into psychedelic research and mental health and is on the planning committee for a psychedelics conference, that’s going to be happening in May 2022 in Toronto.
“There are starting to be some exemptions for clinical research using psychedelic substances. Over the last three years, it seems like there is a bit of momentum building for that, and partially, I think because of promising findings around the potential benefits for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression,” says Bartram. “We don’t have treatments that work for everyone. And so there seems to be some promise that the use of psychedelics may reach the people who aren’t being reached by the current treatment options.”
Bartram says, “Whether it’s linked in some way to legalization or cannabis research. I think it’s fair to say there’s a relationship there, that legalization has opened up some doors, or consideration of therapeutic benefits of other plant-based substances that have been controlled up until now.”
