Reform in Canada Pretense & Perils

of cannabis after legalization. The report also acknowledges that the literature is not
conclusive on the expected level of impact, but concludes: “…on balance, legalization
appears more likely to increase aggregate consumption.” (p.43) The report makes an
estimate of approximately 600,000 new cannabis smokers after legalization, and
identifies advertising and marketing as a factor that will increase use.
It is to be expected that any commercial company (and therefore any commercial drug
company) will have a primary purpose of maximizing return for owners/shareholders. It
attempts to do so largely by overall market expansion and by capturing as much of that
market as possible. Prominent strategies for market expansion include:
product promotion (advertising, marketing, sponsorship, celebrity endorsement)
to increase demand;
increased accessibility to the product to increase purchases;
industry lobbying of government for regulatory practices that facilitate, or do not
obstruct, efforts at market expansion and increased accessibility.
These strategies will weave their way through much of the discussion in this section.
Legal drug products, by their nature and their associated harm, are no ordinary
commodity. A drug industry, primarily through its attempts at market expansion, thus
poses a greater potential threat to public health than do industries providing more
benign consumer products. This requires additional constraints on how drug products
are promoted to the public. It is reasonable to expect that the sum of information
provided to consumers for any legal recreational drug product achieves a balance
between promotion of the product and information that encourages and facilitates its
safe use.
The research demonstrating an association of increased consumption with promotion of
drug products has been cited for alcohol by The Report of the Chief Pubic Health Officer
for Canada (2016) and The Canadian Public Health Association (2011). The research
also demonstrates an impact on children and youth (Heung, 2016). Babor (2010) has
also referenced the body of research demonstrating that the largely self-regulation of
alcohol advertising practices world-wide does not appear to prevent marketing that
would appeal to younger people. Accordingly, Babor has recommended a complete ban
on the advertising of alcohol products, as has been (nearly) achieved for tobacco in
Canada. The evidence on the relationship between promotion and tobacco use has
been cited by The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium (2012), and for alcohol and
tobacco use by Babor (2010) and Pacula et al. (2014). In the case of cannabis, a
complete ban on all forms of promotion of cannabis for recreational purposes has been
recommended by The Chief Medical Officers of Health of Canada & Urban Public
Health Network (2016), The Canadian Public Health Association (2016), The Canadian
Medical Association (Spithoff et al., 2015), The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
(2016a) and the United Kingdom Expert Panel (Rolles, et al., 2016). Uruguay, the only
nation thus far to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes, has banned all forms of
product promotion.
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