A safe supply of cannabis
What if government planned to subsidize a safe supply of cannabis for people who misuse substances? Some may see this as just transferring one addiction to another, yet when viewed through a harm reduction lens, it would be a more humane and less costly approach. Our current government is already funding, “a range of innovative approaches to harm reduction, treatment and prevention at the community level.” The goal of supplying a safe supply of cannabis is not to minimize addictions but rather, critically consider what substance misuse is costing people, while presenting cannabis as an unlikely ally, a powerful partner we can employ to assist us with combating the war on addictions.
It is undeniable, substance misuse touches individuals, families and communities. One reference suggested between January 2016 to October 2019, 11,000 souls were stolen from us. These people were once brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and cousins. While the true damage can never be properly measured, our society does prefers to equate lives to dollars.
To be sure, there are huge pools of dollars being spent on addictions. Let us consider that those 11,000 opiate-related deaths equate to $4.7 billion in lost labour productivity. When we add the lost productivity of the dead with the cost of those who did not die, the number swells from never-ending visits to emergency departments, occupied hospital beds and criminal recidivism. Said plainly, in 2017 the dollars assigned to human suffering equated to $46 billion. To make this more personal, each of us, including our children, contributed $1,260 to fight the war on addictions. Some experts suggest these costs will only increase each year and over the past five years we are nearing a $250 billion spent. When used to lessen human harm, the cost of subsidizing a safe supply of cannabis would be a pittance compared to what we are already spending.
To provide insights to the potential cost of subsidizing a safe supply of cannabis we can look to opioid replacement therapy programs. We start with the average medical cannabis user spending close to $3,500 a year on their medicine. We multiply that number by the deaths-by-opiates number and our investment would be near $11 million. We must remember the dollars would be spent within organized substance use and addictions programs, which follow a process of admitting, assessing, managing and supporting patients through best practice protocols. This support includes education, which probably means a complementary decrease in the billions occupying the adverse effect column of federal budgets. This is not a large amount of money especially when cannabis is also proven to be less harmful.
We can compare costs from those harms caused by cannabis with those caused by other misused substance. Again, using 2017 numbers, the adverse effects of cannabis use has impacted the Canadian economy by $3 billion. Diving deeper into the river of dollars flowing through this statistical cess pool, we find it to be a small percentage when compared to $34 billion spent on the big three: alcohol, tobacco and opiates. We know alcohol and opiates to be relatively quick killers. And while we do not fully understand the long-term effects of inhaled cannabis, we know how tobacco kills slowly. We need not inhale cannabis to benefit from it and understand, there is no lethal dose, so when used judiciously, cannabis is simply less harmful than other misused substances.
Humans have had a positive history with this plant. We know before prohibition cannabis was used as medicine for millenniums. Medical cannabis became legal in Canada in 2001, while recreational use earned that title in 2018. Unfortunately, during the years of prohibition, the stigma of cannabis grew as generations were told it was a gateway drug. This old rhetoric is essentially bunk. Today, knowledgeable practitioners are finding success when using cannabis to treat those with addictions. For example, when prescribing cannabis in opioid replacement therapy programs, practitioners designed a best practice protocol created from their combined knowledge of how to best offer this therapeutic plant within these therapies. Rather than considering this plant a gateway drug, we now come to understand how it is a way out of the lost life of hard drugs.
Cannabis must be part of the conversation when discussing applied therapies for addictions. Remove the stigma and start recognizing cannabis is a partner; an ally in the war of addictions. It will save lives, human suffering and dollars. Inform your community leaders. If we are looking to do less harm than the illness being treated, then it is correct to acknowledge cannabis as a beneficial partner in the therapies used during the drug epidemic. People should discuss this idea with your family practitioners and encourage community leaders to support and advocate for cannabis as a harm reduction partner in the war of addictions. Let us provide a safe supply of cannabis to people who misuse substances by lobbying for a small percentage of the allocated funds held in government supported programs.
KN