Grant: Project Grant

Although legal access to medical cannabis has been available in Canada for many years, our society has yet to fully understand the important health impacts surrounding the use of medical cannabis or recreational users. However, the current availability of medical cannabis in Canada means that researchers have access to a large number of individuals who are cannabis users. This is an important group of people as understanding their health outcomes can help identify future health concerns and guide the implementation of policies, programs, practices, and/or resource distribution that would be needed to address potential health arising amongst non-medical cannabis users. The urgency of obtaining this information is emphasized by the proposal to legalize cannabis in Canada and the subsequent projected increase in cannabis users to as high as 7 million by 2021. Thus, without understanding the risks or benefits of cannabis consumption for such a large number of Canadians, we will not know the range of potential health outcomes of these individuals until too late. As a result, researchers must initiate immediate strategies to understand the benefits and risks associated with cannabis use in a real world context. To assist with this, our team of experts will work with one of the largest known databases of patients seeking cannabis as a medical therapy in order to understand the benefits and the risks associated with their cannabis use. We will use this information to determine how medical cannabis influences other health related factors such as use of other medications, hospitalizations, doctor appointments, accident claims, etc. By studying the real-world health outcomes of our group of patients using medical cannabis, we will be able to better understand the potential long-term health impacts of medical cannabis consumption. This information has the potential to have a substantial impact on the overall health of Canadians using cannabis.