Canada's cannabis legalization and police-reported cannabis-related criminal incidents among youth, 2015-2021.

Canada Cannabis legalization Cannabis-related crime Police-reported crime Uniform Crime Reporting Survey Youth

Journal

Drug and alcohol dependence
ISSN: 1879-0046
Titre abrégé: Drug Alcohol Depend
Pays: Ireland
ID NLM: 7513587

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
23 Apr 2023
Historique:
received: 24 01 2023
revised: 31 03 2023
accepted: 19 04 2023
medline: 15 5 2023
pubmed: 15 5 2023
entrez: 14 5 2023
Statut: aheadofprint

Résumé

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. 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). 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. 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.

Sections du résumé

BACKGROUND 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 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 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 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.

Identifiants

DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109892 PMID: 37183068
pubmed: 37183068
pii: S0376-8716(23)00130-8
doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109892
pii:
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

109892

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

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.

Auteurs

Russell C Callaghan (RC)

University of Northern British Columbia, Northern Medical Program, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British ColumbiaV2N 4Z9, Canada; Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Human Brain Laboratory, 250 College Street, Toronto, OntarioM5T 1R8, Canada; University of Victoria, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), 2300 McKenzie Avenue, Victoria, British ColumbiaV8N 5M8, Canada.

Marcos Sanches (M)

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Biostatistics Core, 60 White Squirrel Way, Toronto, OntarioM6J 1H4, Canada.

Andrew Hathaway (A)

University of Guelph, College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, OntarioN1G 2W1, Canada.

Mark Asbridge (M)

Dalhousie University, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, 5790 University Avenue, Halifax, Nova ScotiaB3H 1V7, Canada.

Marjorie MacDonald (M)

University of Victoria, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), 2300 McKenzie Avenue, Victoria, British ColumbiaV8N 5M8, Canada.

Stephen J Kish (SJ)

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Human Brain Laboratory, 250 College Street, Toronto, OntarioM5T 1R8, Canada. Electronic address: Stephen.Kish@camh.ca.

Classifications MeSH