Abstract
BackgroundChoice of minimum legal age (MLA) for cannabis use is a critical and contentious issue in legalization of non-medical cannabis. In Canada where non-medical cannabis was recently legalized in October 2018, the federal government recommended age 18, the medical community argued for 21 or even 25, while public consultations led most Canadian provinces to adopt age 19. However, no research has compared later life outcomes of first using cannabis at these different ages to assess their merits as MLAs.MethodsWe used doubly robust regression techniques and data from nationally representative Canadian surveys to compare educational attainment, cigarette smoking, self-reported general and mental health associated with different ages of first cannabis use.ResultsWe found different MLAs for different outcomes: 21 for educational attainment, 19 for cigarette smoking and mental health and 18 for general health. Assuming equal weight for these individual outcomes, the ‘overall’ MLA for cannabis use was estimated to be 19 years. Our results were robust to various robustness checks.ConclusionOur study indicated that there is merit in setting 19 years as MLA for non-medical cannabis.
Highlights
Choice of minimum legal age (MLA) for cannabis use is a critical and contentious issue in legalization of non-medical cannabis
Respondents across the four age groups of first cannabis use were similar both in the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Surveys (CTUMS) and CTADS, except that average age of respondents was higher in higher age groups of first cannabis use among CTUMS respondents
Education level among those who started cannabis at age 21–24 was significant higher relative to those who started before age 21 (p < 0.01), suggesting that the MLA based on educational outcome should be 21
Summary
Choice of minimum legal age (MLA) for cannabis use is a critical and contentious issue in legalization of non-medical cannabis. In Canada where non-medical cannabis was recently legalized in October 2018, the federal government recommended age 18, the medical community argued for 21 or even 25, while public consultations led most Canadian provinces to adopt age 19. No research has compared later life outcomes of first using cannabis at these different ages to assess their merits as MLAs. Choice of minimum legal age (MLA) for cannabis use is a critical and contentious issue in non-medical cannabis legalization. In Canada (which legalized non-medical cannabis in October 2018), the federal government task force on cannabis legalization recommended an MLA of 18 years [1], stating it chose a low MLA to discourage the persistence of the underground market [2]. All US states that have legalized non-medical cannabis (i.e. Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, and the District of Columbia) opted for an MLA of 21 [7].
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