By Kieran Leavitt
EDMONTON—With
cannabis legalization on the horizon, Alberta Health Services is trying
to grapple with how and where people can use the substance — but also
how they can help people quit if they want to stop using it.
“It does worry me,” said AHS executive director for addiction and mental health, Mark Snaterse.
“When
we look at some parts of the world that have done this (legalization),
they have found that in many instances, recreational users of marijuana
will often become daily or regular users of marijuana.”
He’s a
veteran in the world of addictions, having been involved for 26 years
and in his current role as director for nine. He has reason to be
concerned, while most people who come to use his department’s services
are addicted to myriad substances, many are addicted to marijuana.
“When
we look at everybody coming into our services for all different kinds
of substance use, the top two are alcohol and marijuana,” he said.
According
to data Snaterse provided from all of Alberta in 2016-2017, only one
per cent of people who accessed addiction services came solely using
marijuana.
However, of people taking multiple substances, 52 per
cent of them included marijuana in their list of substances they were
taking. Of those people, 25 per cent identified that marijuana was a
problem they wanted to be treated for.
Therefore, of the
approximately 13,500 people that accessed addiction services and listed
marijuana as a substance they used in 2016 and 2017, around 3,300
acknowledged marijuana was a problem for them.
Snaterse also said mental illness is commonly exacerbated by marijuana use.
“A
lot of the people we care for have a persistent and chronic mental
illness,” he said. “There certainly is a strong link between people’s
ability to remain well and their use of substances such as marijuana.”
His
department offers addictions counselling and one-on-one support for
people dealing with dependency to marijuana. The treatment style is very
individualistic, Snaterse said.
Some will be in residential
treatment, where they spend a certain amount of time. Some just need to
have conversations with counsellors and others might have to be
outpatients dealing with things more independently.
Snaterse
said they deal with marijuana withdrawal as well, saying people can
experience high anxiety or other emotional symptoms.
No substitute exists for people wanting to ween themselves off cannabis, he said.
May 31 marks World No Tobacco Day and folks all over the globe gathered in protest to tobacco products.
In
Edmonton, Chris Sikora, medical officer for health with Alberta Health
Services, spoke to the cessation of smoking but also said they’re also
grappling with legalization of cannabis and what it means for them.
At
the Kaye Edmonton Clinic Thursday, AHS promoted their resources for
quitting smoking available to those struggling, but have updated their
policy to include quitting the use of cannabis.
People dealing
with substance abuse can access addiction counselling, outpatient
support, residential support or peer support through AHS. Typically
people will go for a consultation to see what the best course of
treatment is. This applies to tobacco, e-cigarette and cannabis use as
well.
AHS also updated their policies to ban cannabis use on all
of their properties, with Sikora saying although cannabis will be legal
to consume, it shouldn’t mean creating an unsafe environment where
people are cared for.
“What isn’t right… is exposing others to
those substances in an unnecessary manner that increases risk the risk
of harm to other individuals,” said Sikora.
AHS has a free help
line people can call if they want assistance in dealing with addiction,
available by dialling 1-866-332-2322.
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