Cannabis > The abuse of medical cannabis in Australia

 

‘Profits over patient safety’: Doctors face medicinal cannabis crackdown

Patients in emergency departments with cannabis-induced psychosis, consults lasting less than a minute and doctors who have issued more than 10,000 scripts in six months are among the cases that have prompted Australia’s healthcare watchdog to announce clearer guidelines for the booming medicinal cannabis industry. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency has released guidance for doctors prescribing medicinal cannabis products amid what it described as poor prescribing practice and surging patient demand.

The watchdog has been alarmed by the emergence of “vertically integrated” telehealth clinics, which both prescribe and dispense cannabis products and account for the vast majority of an estimated $500 million worth of sales each year. The regulator’s chief executive Jason Untersteiner said it would crack down on some practitioners with high rates of prescribing, including eight who had issued more than 10,000 scripts in six months, and one who has prescribed cannabis products more than 17,000 times. “Some business models that have emerged in this area rely on prescribing a single product or class of drug and use online questionnaires that coach patients to say ‘the right thing’ to justify prescribing medicinal cannabis,” Untersteiner said. “This raises the very real concern that some practitioners may be putting profits over patient safety.”

In Australia, GPs and qualified nurse practitioners can prescribe medicinal cannabis under a special access scheme set up after cannabis was legalised for medical use in 2016. Under the guidelines, GPs and nurses must only prescribe cannabis products after they have identified a therapeutic need, conducted a thorough assessment of their medical history and other medicines, and developed an exit strategy from the beginning.

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Another study misses the real reason for falling birth rates

 

Baby bust: Why the French want fewer children

– or none at all

Analysis

France

Long Europe’s baby-making champions, the French are increasingly aiming to have smaller families or no children at all, a trend driven by changing social norms, economic constraints and the concerns and aspirations of a younger generation.

Issued on: 10/07/2025 - 18:36

4 minReading time

By:

Barbara GABEL

France's traditionally resilient birth rate has dropped sharply in recent years, fuelling talk of the end of the country's “demographic exception”. © Joël Saget, AFP file photo

From her teenage years, Bettina Zourli knew she would be the “cool auntie” – but not a mother herself. It’s a choice she recalls having to justify time and time again.  

“People told me that I was bound to change my mind, that it was in the female nature to want children,” says the 31-year-old feminist writer and activist, whose Instagram account @jeneveuxpasdenfant ("I don’t want children") has more than 65,000 followers. 

Zourli's views on the matter are increasingly common in a country that used to stand out from its European neighbours for its high birth rate, but has recently fallen in line.

Last year, 12.2 percent of French people said they didn’t want to have children, more than twice the number from 2005, according to a study released on Wednesday by national demography institute INED. 

The figure is even higher in the 18-29 age group, roughly equivalent to “Gen Z”, with 15% percent of men and 13.3 percent of women saying they do not want to be parents. 

The shifting numbers are the latest indicator of changing attitudes to parenthood and the steady erosion of France’s so-called “demographic exception”. 

‘Changing social norms’ 

Zourli says it’s often hard to pinpoint a particular reason for not wanting children. 

“It’s just the absence of desire,” she says. “It’s more of an innate thing. You can’t explain why you don’t want kids.” 

According to the INED study, neither gender, nor standard of living, nor professional category alone can explain why a growing number of people say they have no desire for children. It points instead to how “attitudes and opinions” increasingly weigh in the balance. 

Here is the missing link that ties this all together - marijuana. Cannabis users have a tendency to stop maturing when they start using pot. Consequently, many never reach the level of maturity where they want to have children. Many remain emotionally adolescents well into adulthood.
Marijuana > The Astounding Effects it is Having on Civilization - No one is talking about

Didier Breton, a professor of demography at the University of Strasbourg and associate researcher at INED, cautions against reading the figures as evidence of a fading desire to have children.  

“It’s more a matter of changing social norms,” he says. “Twenty years ago, it was less acceptable for people to say they didn’t want children, particularly for women. Today, it’s easier to express such a choice.” 

Breton points to several possible motives for not wanting children, including the physical transformations associated with pregnancy, a refusal to accept the constraints of parenthood, and a desire to preserve one’s freedom and independence.  

“It’s about making life-defining choices, such as prioritising your career, travelling, or simply not reproducing the family model you’ve known,” he says. 

Gender inequality 

A 2021 survey of people who did not want children found that 86 percent cited the desire to devote themselves to “private life, relationships, friends and travel”. In second place, 71 percent of respondents said they didn’t identify with parenthood. 

The latter figure conceals a major gender gap, with 45 percent of women answering “not at all” against 29 percent for men – a discrepancy that is even wider among people aged under 30.  

“Gender inequality is a major factor in women’s stance on whether or not they want children,” says French sociologist Charlotte Debest, whose book “Elles vont finir seules avec leur chats” ("They will end up alone with their cats") will be published later this year.  

“The unequal division of domestic labour makes it harder for women to see themselves as mothers,” Debest explains. “Many women refuse to accept traditional models of the ‘good mother’ that persist to this day. Such models are out of step with the aspirations of many young women.”

Concern about climate change and the future of the planet is another major factor.  

In the 2021 survey, 63 percent of respondents cited environmental protection as a reason not to have children. The high percentage reflects both growing ecological awareness and a tendency to seek an ethical motive for remaining childless, argues Debest.  

Read moreThe French nationals going 'childfree' to save the planet

“Using the ecological argument gives social legitimacy to people who choose not to have children,” she explains. “Instead of just saying, ‘I don’t want children’, it’s a way to say you’re giving up on children for their own good.”  

She adds: “Of course, there are many childless people who are genuinely committed to environmental activism or concerned about the future of the planet.” 

The end of the three-child model 

Such concerns are fuelling a rapid drop in France’s fertility rate, which slumped to 1.62 children per woman last year, down from 2.02 in 2010, hitting its lowest level since the end of the First World War.

The steady decline in recent years has prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call for a “demographic rearmament” of the nation with new reforms making it easier for people to have children – which are yet to come into law.

According to the INED study, people who do want children are increasingly aiming for smaller families, largely because of economic constraints.  

Among women under 30, the desired number of children has fallen from an average of 2.5 in 2005 to 1.9 in 2024, the study found. 

“The high cost of living coupled with job and housing instability mean many people feel they simply cannot afford another child,” says Debest. “There is a new awareness of the cost of bringing up children.” 

Whereas 26 percent of French people said they wanted three children in 2005, the figure has now dropped to 15.5 percent.  

“We are witnessing the erosion of the three-child family model, which was once highly valued in France,” says Breton, for whom the model is “destined to disappear”.  

Zourli says she regularly receives Instagram messages from mothers wondering whether they should have a second child, and that many thank her for making them feel “less guilty”.  

“The societal pressure to have a nuclear family with a boy, a girl and their heterosexual parents remains strong,” she adds. “But it's being questioned more and more.” 

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Marijuana > The Astounding Effects it is Having on Civilization - No one is talking about

 

At least one generation of children has been sorely affected by marijuana in many horrific ways. Those effects have become a major threat to civilization as we know it in the Western world.

This could well be one of the most important documents you have ever read. Please take the time to read it and, if you agree, please do everything you can to push this post to everyone you know. 

There are so many effects that marijuana is having on children and adults, some of which are changing Western society in profound and disturbing ways.

Governments like the tax money from legal pot sales so much, that they don't bother to study the disastrous effects of the drug. There is a lot of blood on their hands.

Populations in the Western world are suffering from very low birth rates, well below the 2.2 births per woman that are needed to maintain a population. For the sake of the economy, these shortfalls are made up for by immigration. It sounds like a win-win situation, but many problems are associated with importing cultures that threaten the very existence of Western society. For instance, while Western fertility rates are almost all below sustainable levels, Muslims in the West have fertility rates that suggest a doubling, or even tripling, of their numbers every 20 years or so.

But what is causing the low birth rates? I believe that marijuana is the major contributor, for two reasons. The first, but least important is that chronic marijuana users sometimes suffer from ED. 

Chronic use of alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs can cause erectile dysfunction and decreased sexual drive - Brown University

But the most important factor in falling fertility rates is that marijuana users just don't want to have children. I once had neighbors in a brand-new subdivision who were pot smokers, neighbors on both sides of me. Both couples were in their 30s. Both couples loved children, but neither wanted the responsibility of raising them.

Having watched and studied pot smokers in the nearly 50 years since, that attitude revealed itself in profound and disturbing conclusions. 

The neighbors on the one side seemed quite normal but for the lack of children. We had neighborhood parties once or twice a year, and they always drank alcohol and behaved normally. But during the last couple of years, he started using pot, and at the last party I attended with them he had grown long, bushy sideburns, wore a white shirt open to the belly button, was decked out in several gold chains, and talked a little differently. It's like he regressed to being a yuppie, which was so three or four years ago. 

The neighbors on my other side were quite fascinating. Both held down steady full-time jobs and were apparently normal functioning people. Except, when Friday afternoon arrived, off came the work clothes, and on went smocks all the way to their ankles. Barefoot most of the year, they let their hair down which reached their backsides. Then they lit up the pot and stayed high until Sunday night.

They also had Walkmans in their breast pockets and earphones through which they listened primarily to Beatles music. I thought, 'That makes sense, they are on drugs, they are listening to the Beatles drug music, ie post-Maharishi, like Yellow Submarine, Revolver, the White Album, Sergeant Peppers. But, no, they didn't listen to 'that crap', they listened to the early Beatles. That made no sense to me at all, but then I began to put it all together. 

Aside from the music, the apparel, and the vocabularies straight out of 1967 Haight-Ashbury, they drove a 1967 vehicle that they kept immaculate. I realized that this couple was stuck in 1967. That it was the fault of the pot they smoked wouldn't occur to me for many years.

Several years later, I was hitchhiking in Ottawa when a nice young man in a new pickup stopped for me. After a brief conversation, he asked how I felt about pot. I told him that I felt it was a lot like booze, a convenient way to avoid growing up instead of facing one's problems head-on. He almost stopped the truck and kicked me out, he was so angry. So I asked him if he wanted me to tell him what he wanted to hear, or the truth. He just looked at me.

Another decade or so later I encountered a boy of 15 who had begun to smoke pot. Ten years later, the young man was still acting and looking like he was 15. His wardrobe didn't change, his speech, his music preferences, his attitude, his likes and dislikes all remained the same as when he was 15. At 25, I shared my thoughts with him that marijuana leaves you stuck at the age you were when you started. He took it to heart, stopped with the pot, and suddenly began to mature and grow. 

It was about this time when I made another startling discovery. After learning that pot was now many times more powerful than pot of the 60's and 70's, I began to read about Michael Jackson. That uber-talented young man was mentally messed up more than anyone I know. Why? His brothers, apparently, shared pot with him before he was even 10 years old. Imagine having a body that goes through puberty and becomes a man, while your brain is still prepubescent.  It has become common knowledge that MJ had a doctor available to set up an IV drip every night so he could sleep. The IV injected pure THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, right into his bloodstream. 

MJ's friend, Tommy Chong, was quoted as saying that MJ was more a man as a child and more a child as a man - not the precise wording. He indicated that MJ regressed further into childhood the older he got. I believe it was entirely because of the THC drip that he insisted upon every night.

More recently, I encountered a girl who started smoking pot when she was 14. That was several years ago. Now, in her early 20's she acts like a 12-year-old.

Today, I am wondering if Justin Trudeau smokes pot. His marriage broke up and the media has not even attempted to explain why. But my real concern is his reaction to the Truckers protest in Ottawa. His extreme overreaction makes me think he reacted like a frightened adolescent. If he smokes pot, could he have regressed into adolescence? That's frightening! Like MJ, a prepubescent mind in an adult body, is Justin an adolescent in the office of Prime Minister of Canada?

Justin has the same attitude toward climate change as Greta Thunberg, and he was videoed at a Taylor Swift concert swapping bracelets with kids while Hamas supporters were rioting in his home city of Montreal.

Am I the only one in 50 years to see these phenomena? 

No, finally a Danish professor has documented the loss of maturity in Western society in a book titled, Infantilized. Dr Keith Hayward is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Copenhagen. He has published widely on matters relating to crime, terrorism, and popular culture. He lives in Copenhagen.

He published an article in the Economist recently - 

21st Century people are far less mature than 1960s people. Why?

In it, he documents the fact that people, in general, are far less mature now than in the 1960s. Unfortunately, his conclusions as to why do not include marijuana. I'm convinced Dr Hayward needs to revisit his causal theories.

Drugs and Kids > More Scary Research into the Effects of Marijuana on Teenagers

The research announced today and published by the CBC in Canada includes these extraordinary statements: "Study findings suggest that adolescent cannabis use is linked to difficulties in successfully completing the tasks that mark the transition to adulthood," 

and, Increasing evidence shows that brain development during adolescence can be harmed by frequent cannabis use and cognitive functions can be permanently reduced.

Young people need to develop and mature and prepare themselves to meet demands in adult life.

"Cannabis use, especially frequent use, impairs this development and reduces the likelihood that a young person will be able to establish a satisfactory adult life,"

What are the consequences of the cessation or regression of maturity?

As mentioned at the top, there is a serious reluctance for pot users to have children. It's not because of poverty, or that the world is in such a horrific mess. It's because pot inhibits its users from growing up normally and developing the desire to have children.

As discussed above, the consequences are a diminishing national population, and the increasing immigration of people from other cultures, with other religions, ideologies, beliefs, and values. Europe is currently undergoing cultural suicide and will not be recognizable in two or three generations.

Russia has just introduced a bill to pay college students to have children. They also forbid the international adoption of Russian children.

Canadians concerned country’s children are too soft, with no coping skills

A Scouts Canada survey found that most Canadians are concerned that children aged 10 to 21 are too soft and have not been taught appropriate coping skills to navigate their future.

The survey, which included 1,000 Canadians, uncovered that social media channels, screens and lack of development, social/peer pressure, video games and helicopter parenting are the biggest dangers to kids today.

Not even close! Child Sexual Abuse is the greatest threat to kids today and Marijuana is a close second.

Just over a third of those surveyed are not confident that the kids aged 10 to 21 will be able to get jobs in the future and grow into successful adults.

Canadian Convulsions > Canadian Youth "Very, very, unhappy!" - Happiness report

Canada ranks 15th overall, down 2 places from last year; but 58th when you just consider under 30s. 

This is a precipitous drop in the Happiness scale for Canadian youth over the past 15 years. What has happened in that time period? 

1. Marijuana was legalized. Not for kids, but the legalization is enough for kids to think there can't be any harm in smoking or eating pot or it would be illegal. Pot is easy to get in any Western country, at any age, too easy.

2. Gender fluidity is being taught in schools causing confusion and dramatically increasing the likelihood of a child attempting suicide - the very opposite of the excuse they have for teaching it.

3. Climate alarmism is pushed hard by all legacy media. Children have to worry if the world will last until they grow up. Such an irresponsible attitude by news media would never have been tolerated in the 60's and 70's.

4. Morality is just mass confusion anymore if it exists at all. The Fear of God hardly exists even in some churches.

5. Child sexual abuse is the worst atrocity the world has ever seen, and nobody wants to know.

Drugs and Kids > More Scary Research into the Effects of Marijuana on Teenagers

This study also linked the use of pot by teens as correlating well with such things as:

60% less likely to graduate

Not attending college

18 times more likely to become dependent on pot

8 times more likely to use harder drugs

Suicide attempts

Depression

More likely to need welfare

Heavy marijuana users generally report:

lower life satisfaction, 

poorer mental and physical health, 

more relationship problems, and

less academic and career success.

What are some other nightmarish effects of marijuana?

In 2008, leading psychiatrists warned people who smoked super-strength pot were 18 times more likely to suffer a psychotic episode.

“Skunk (super-strength pot), which accounts for about 80 percent of the UK market has an average THC (a psychoactive ingredient) content of 16.2 percent and ranges up to 46 percent.

“Old fashioned '60 to '70s cannabis had around 1-2 percent THC."

The Netherlands (reported by BBC)

The famous cannabis-selling coffee shops of the Netherlands are facing new tighter restrictions.

The Dutch government is reclassifying high-strength cannabis to put it in the same category as hard drugs.

It says the amount of the main active chemical in the drug, THC, has gone up, making it far more potent than a generation ago.

Marijuana is just not the same

Regular cannabis users double their risks of experiencing psychotic symptoms and disorders, especially if they have a personal or family history of psychotic disorders, and if they start using cannabis in their mid-teens.

A regular cannabis user refers to someone who gets high at least three times a week.

Playing Russian Roulette with Your Sanity

By smoking pot! Kids under 16 have a 1 in 6 chance of developing full-blown, irreversible Schizophrenia, Paranoia, or both, from smoking pot. 1 in 6 - just like Russian Roulette. 

Does Pot make you Crazy?

Teenagers who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic.

Unfortunately, I know at least one young man, as nice a man as you could find, who suffers horribly from both schizophrenia and paranoia. His life will be one of drugs and difficulties thanks to pot.

Marijuana and mental illness - 30 sec trailer

See the full documentary:

Drugs and Kids > Cannabis linked to increased risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in young adults

Is Your Teen Smoking Pot? Is She Still Sane?

Research from the UK (reported in the Daily Mail)

Cannabis is a threat to mental health.

Cannabis use is now the biggest single cause of serious mental disorders in the UK, a leading expert warned yesterday.

Up to 80 per cent of new patients at many units have a history of smoking the drug, said consultant psychiatrist Professor Robin Murray.

Brain damage

More Research on the Dangerous Effects of Marijuana on the Brain

Research from Harvard Medical School indicates that even casual use of pot can cause permanent brain damage.

A New Zealand study found that cannabis users were more than twice as likely to have a stroke at an early age (18-55). Interestingly, there is no evidence of any correlation with heart attacks.

“Marijuana is just not the same benign substance that we knew about in the 60s,” says Kerrie Watt from Coastal Health. “It does have real health impacts and impacts in the lives of young people and their families in particular, and it’s something worth taking a look at.”

“Particularly in adolescents, the memory centers of the brain appear to shrink and that they are impaired in terms of their ability to learn and have good recalls of memories.”

Dr. Wayne Hall, who conducted the study, came to some of the following conclusions:

Regular cannabis users can develop a dependence syndrome, the risks of which are around one in 10 of all cannabis users and one in six among those who start in adolescence.

Regular adolescent cannabis users have lower educational attainment than non-using peers but we don’t know whether the link is causal.

Driving while cannabis intoxicated doubles the risk of a car crash; this risk increases substantially if users are also alcohol intoxicated.

More than 450,000 incidents of emergency room admissions related to marijuana occur every year, and heavy marijuana use in adolescence is connected to an 8-point reduction of IQ later in life, irrespective of alcohol use.

Marijuana Use Linked to Brain Abnormalities

The results showed differences in two brain areas associated with emotion and motivation — the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens. Users showed higher density than non-users, as well as differences in shape of those areas. Both differences were more pronounced in those who reported smoking more marijuana.

I posted this open letter  from my Facebook page, Voice of the Children: (https://www.facebook.com/GaryWmMyers), and asked these questions before Canada legalized marijuana. Of course, I got no answer.

What are the effects on a child born to a woman who is a regular user of pot?

What are the effects on a child of growing up in a home where one or more parent is a frequent user of pot?

Several years later, I would ask how many toddlers have been treated in ERs for marijuana consumption because of chewables, and what are the long-term effects of that likely to be?

Japan has just passed laws making possession of marijuana a crime punishable by up to 7 years in prison. Their motivation was the rapidly increasing use of pot by Japanese youth. A most responsible decision by a national government needs to spread all over the world before we destroy another generation of youth. 

There is the Denver man who, hours after buying a package of marijuana-infused Karma Kandy from one of Colorado’s new recreational marijuana shops, began raving about the end of the world and then pulled a handgun from the family safe and killed his wife.

It's time to end the madness!

Please push this tweet, blog post, or FB page as fast and as far as you can. Keep pushing until a horde of sociology Masters students all over the world are studying this.

Gary Wm Myers

garymsmail@gmail.com

@GaryWmMyers

If you are going to Japan > Don't take any pot with you

 

A  good move by Japan. If only it spread across the world. 

Under new laws, Japan's hard stance on cannabis

could imprison users for up to 7 years

By Mike Heuer

Cannabis users in Japan could be imprisoned for up to seven years under new laws that took effect on Thursday. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Recently revised Japanese cannabis and narcotics laws went into effect on Thursday and could land violators in prison for up to seven years.

A general concern about rising use of cannabis among Japanese youth spurred the nation's lawmakers to criminalize possession, cultivation or distribution of marijuana and cannabis products that contain the psychoactive ingredient THC.

The new laws categorize cannabis and THC as narcotics and punishes violators with up to seven years in prison, while the old laws did not make it a criminal offense to use marijuana or products containing THC.

The new laws also legalize cannabis products used for medicinal purposes when those products are proven to be safe and effective at treating medical conditions.

Japan reported a record 6,703 cannabis-related offenses in 2023, which was more than cases related to methamphetamine violations.

It also was the first time Japan had more marijuana-related cases than those triggered by methamphetamine offenses.

Many attributed the rise in cannabis use among Japan's youth to a lack of penalties despite cannabis and THC being banned.

Because there were no criminal penalties, many people say that encouraged youth to use cannabis because there was no effective legal deterrence. With the new penalties in effect, Japanese lawmakers seek to reverse the trend of rising cannabis use among the nation's youth.

The new laws also give Japanese law enforcement more tools to investigate cannabis offenses and prosecute people who test positive for THC in urine, hair, or blood samples.

Thousands of Young People Hospitalized Due to Cannabis and Other Substance Use

Last year, more than 23,500 youths were hospitalized in Canada

for harm from substance use - 40% for cannabis use

CBC News 

Cannabis accounted for nearly 40 per cent of hospital stays among youth for harm from substance use,

according to a new Canadian report. (Jason Redmond/Reuters)

About 65 young people in Canada per day land in hospital because of harm caused by cannabis, alcohol, opioids and other substances, according to a new report.

Clinicians and a former user say the findings from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) highlight the desperate need for more community supports to help those with mental health concerns.

The institute released the report, titled "Hospital stays for harm caused by substance use among youth age 10 to 24," on Thursday. The figures present a snapshot of the hospital stays in those age groups in 2017-2018, before the legalization of cannabis.

Last year, more than 23,500 youth were hospitalized for harm from substance use, the report says. In comparison, about 8,000 were hospitalized for illnesses related to the appendix. 

The findings highlight the need to focus attention on youth who experience harm caused by substance use and have mental health conditions occurring at the same time, as well as those who live in lower-income or rural and remote areas, the report's authors said.

Cannabis accounted for nearly 40 per cent of those hospital stays among youth, followed by alcohol-related hospitalizations at about 26 per cent.

OK, so can we stop saying pot is less harmful than alcohol? The frightening outbreak of lung disease among otherwise healthy youth in the US related to vaping, is also being related to the addition of THC drops to the mix. 7 people have died and several hundred made very ill.

Missed opportunities

Dr. Joanna Henderson, a psychologist and senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, says the report shows perspectives on substance abuse need to expand, especially when nearly 70 per cent of the hospitalizations for harm caused by substance use involve mental health conditions, as well.

And the questions is, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

That's nearly double the proportion among those aged 25 and older.

I have been reporting for years that pot is related to a great spike in the occurrence of schizophrenia in teenagers. There are numerous reports from all over the world. 

Teenagers who Smoke Cannabis Damage Their Brains for LIFE and May be More Likely to Develop Schizophrenia

Is Your Teen Smoking Pot? Is She Still Sane?

'The Link Between Marijuana and Psychosis is Significant'

Marketplace Tests Today's Marijuana and Finds It Very Dangerous for Under 25s

Pot Smoking Teens Suffer Brain Damage Well Into Adulthood

Another Study Links Pot Use to Increased Psychosis Development

Does Pot make you Crazy?

More Research on the Dangerous Effects of Marijuana on the Brain

Pot, Schizophrenia, and The Truth

ER Visits for Self-Harming Doubles in 8 Years in Ontario - Why?

Think Cannabis is Harmless? So Did I. But I Know Better Now

Pediatricians Need More Information on Medical Marijuana for Kids, Study Says

The Mad Rush to Legalize Pot Will Result in a Lot of Canadians Suffering Intolerably

"We need adequate services in the hospital but we also need to be thinking about how are we intervening sooner," said Henderson, who was not involved in the research.

"We are missing opportunities like schools, local malls … where young people are."

Young people need places in communities that are one-stop shops to connect them with employment, education, housing and health services, including mental health and substance use, she said.

'You're not alone'

Lucas Wade, 31, first started smoking cannabis at 17 "out of peer pressure," he said.  At age 20, he was toking daily for pleasure along with boozing. 

"I was admitted to hospital after my roommate found me after trying to suicide because I couldn't stop smoking pot, no matter what," Wade said. "I couldn't keep living that way."

Wade ended up homeless when a landlord evicted him for smoking indoors after signing a contract saying he wouldn't.

Wade studied social work and now works as a support counselor in Toronto, where he sees many youth with underlining mental health issues using substances as a coping mechanism.

The first step is to talk to someone close to you, such as a best friend, parent or sibling, Wade said.

(CIHI)

Remember, these numbers are from before cannabis was legalized. Next year's numbers will be considerably worse.

"If you're the youth, find a safe space or people where you can share and talk about this stuff because it is so hard. When you're in the throes of it, you feel so alone. You're not alone."

Previous research suggests young people with pre-existing mental health concerns can be at higher risk for problematic substance use and it occurs in the other direction as well, Henderson said.

Don't skip over that last line.  It occurs in the other direction as well means substance abuse can cause mental illness, as the many articles linked above indicate.

It's important not only to collect consistent data across Canada regularly to find any changes but to speak to young people about their experience with how services are delivered, she added.

About 17 per cent of the youth were hospitalized more than once in the same fiscal year, according to CIHI. That's another red flag for the need for better community supports, clinicians say.

Hospitalization rates varied by province and territory. The hospital stays are "the tip of the iceberg when it comes to estimating harm caused by substance use," CIHI said, and doesn't include fatal overdoses in the community.

Where to get help:

Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text) | crisisservicescanada.ca (chat).

In Quebec (French): Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553).

Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (phone), www.kidshelpphone.ca (live chat counselling).

Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre.