Approximately 300,000 cannabis users in Canada may be "one toke over the line"

Cannabis for non-medical purposes has been legally available in Canada for almost five years now. A new study has found that 1 in 20 Canadians (approximately 300,000 people) who had consumed cannabis in the previous year scored high enough on the Severity of Dependence Scale to be considered at risk for cannabis use disorder (addiction) and other harms.

We asked a representative sample of Canadians about their cannabis usage in 2019 and 2020, following legalization. An estimated 6.5 million Canadians reported that they consumed cannabis in the previous 12 months.

Over one-third of Canadians who consume cannabis use it less than once a month

Over one-third (38%) of the Canadians who reported using cannabis in the past 12 months consumed it less than once a month, while one-quarter (25%) reported using cannabis weekly or one to three times a month. Just over one-quarter (26%) of past-year consumers reported using cannabis daily or almost daily.

Over three-quarters of cannabis users say it would not be difficult to quit

More than three-quarters (77.3%) of the Canadians who reported using cannabis in the past year reported that they would not have any difficulty stopping and had never or almost never experienced any of the other four dependency symptoms, such as the degree of psychological dependence based on an individual’s feelings of impaired control, preoccupation and anxiety toward their cannabis use.

Conversely, almost 1 in 20 people (4.7%) who reported consuming cannabis in the past year scored 4 or more on the Severity of Dependence Scale, putting these 300,000 Canadians at risk of cannabis use disorder (addiction) and other harms.

The downside of cannabis

During the first two years of legalization, over one in five Canadians (21.7%) who scored high on the Severity of Dependence Scale reported that cannabis led to health, social, legal or financial problems. This was 10 times higher than cannabis users who scored low on the dependence scale (2.1%).

Users who scored high on the dependence scale were also more likely (18.1%) to fail to do what was normally expected of them because of their cannabis use than those who scored low on the scale (1.8%).

Frequent cannabis use most strongly associated with risk of cannabis addiction

The study found that cannabis users at highest risk of addiction were frequent users. Single or never-married people, men aged 18 to 24 years and from lower-income households, people diagnosed with an anxiety or mood disorder, or who started consuming cannabis at age 15 or younger, monthly or more, were also at higher risk.

The study “Using the Severity of Dependence Scale to examine cannabis consumers with impaired control in Canada” is now available.