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I'm a clinical psychologist
and I'm a researcher.

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I study drugs and human behavior.

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So I'm really interested in who uses drugs
and what drugs they're using,

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and why do they use them,

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and what are the consequences
for mental health?

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And like a lot of people
in the past couple of years,

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my team and I have been
turning our attention towards cannabis.

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And we've conducted a series of studies

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of medical and recreational
cannabis users.

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So one question that people
often ask me when they find out

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that I research recreational
and therapeutic cannabis use

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is how can you tell the difference?

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What's the difference
between recreational and medical use?

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And I think that's a great question

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because it raises some
really important issues

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about just how porous the barriers can be

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between well-being, health and pleasure.

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And I don't think
there's really an easy answer.

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I don't think there's going to be
one, sort of, objective criteria

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that we can use to distinguish
medical from recreational use.

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There are people out there
who have conditions

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that respond very well
to cannabis-based medicines.

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And they might still use cannabis
a lot of the time

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because they like the way
it makes them feel.

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There are also people who might
not think of themselves as medical users,

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but they get substantial symptom relief
from using cannabis -

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people with back pain who smoke a joint
before they go to bed

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and find they can get through the night
with a good sleep undisturbed by pain

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even though they're having
a bit of a flare-up.

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But for a lot of people it is clear cut.

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They have serious and severe
symptoms and illnesses

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that they treat effectively with cannabis
and cannabis-based medicines,

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and they don't like the feeling;
it's an unwelcome side effect.

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For a lot of people, it's both:

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They treat very legitimate symptoms
using cannabis medicines,

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and maybe they like
some of the other aspects as well.

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But whether it's recreational
or therapeutic or both,

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what we do know is
that a lot of adults in Canada

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choose to use cannabis.

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They weigh the costs and the benefits,

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and they make a reasonable
and rational choice to use cannabis.

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It's well over half of Canadians
across their lifetime,

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and about 20 percent of us
in the past year.

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So if so many Canadian adults
are making this rational choice,

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what's the big deal?

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Why do we have
this complex and conflicted

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fearful relationship
with this ancient plant?

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I think that's really
the important question.

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How did we get where we are today?

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And where might we go from here?

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And that's what I want to talk about.

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I want to talk about
where we are with cannabis.

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You know, when we think about
our relationship with the cannabis plant,

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we tend to have very short memories.

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A lot of us will start off, you know,

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with some of the cultural
changes of the 1960s -

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there's Jerry Garcia.

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Some of us will even go back to the 1950s

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and jazz culture.

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But really, if we want
to think about our relationship

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between human beings and cannabis,

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we have to go back
a whole lot further than that.

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This is a pictographic representation
of hemp plants being hung out to dry.

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It's about 5,000 years old;
it comes from central Asia.

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And that's where our best estimates
of early human use of cannabis come from,

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several thousand years ago in Asia.

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And whether that use was medical,
whether it was spiritual,

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whether it was just for fun,

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I don't think we really know,
it's an ongoing debate.

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But what we do know
is that this is a very old relationship.

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By some estimates, cannabis
was the first cultivated plant.

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You could say that cannabis
and human beings grew up together.

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Cannabis has been described
as a camp follower.

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It's a plant that follows
human beings wherever we go

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and wherever we disturb the earth
and make a place for it to take root.

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Cannabis can, of course, grow wild,

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but it doesn't mind some help.

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And for most of our 
many-millennia-long relationship,

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we've gotten along pretty well.

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Even as recently as just
a little over 100 years ago,

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Queen Victoria was using cannabis extracts
for therapeutic purposes.

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But like any long relationship,
there have been ups and downs.

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And cannabis and human beings

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had a bit of a falling out
around the 1930s.

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That's when you first see
the term "marijuana" become popular,

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and it was a term that was coined
by cannabis prohibitionists

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to make the familiar cannabis plant
seem foreign and scary.

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That's why I don't favor that term.

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I like to think that
my great-grandchildren

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won't recognize it.

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And if they do, they'll laugh
when they hear "marijuana."

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I'm pretty sure
that they're going to look back

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on our current era as a strange
and confusing time of misunderstanding.

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So, since we've had this falling out,

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cannabis and people,

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how have we both fared?

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I mean, we're both distinct species
with our own biological imperatives.

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So what has this interspecies battle

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meant for people
and for the cannabis plant?

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It's been noted that the psychoactive
resin of the cannabis plant,

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the part that has most
of the medical properties,

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the part that people use to get high,

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it's been proposed that that evolved
to protect and cool the seeds,

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and that's certainly true.

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But when we think about how much help
the cannabis plant has got from people,

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we can imagine that the resin
may have evolved

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to serve other purposes as well.

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The writer Michael Pollan,

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in a great TED Talk
from a couple of years ago,

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encourages us to take
a plant's eye view of things,

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to try to see things
from the plant's perspective.

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And I think that perspective
can be really helpful

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when we try to estimate
what the impact of this battle has been

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on the evolutionary path
of the cannabis plant.

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I think when we take
this plant's eye perspective,

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particularly here in BC,

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it seems like the cannabis plant
is doing pretty well.

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It's not native to this region
but it grows widely throughout the area.

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You know, I think that
if I were to take the perspective

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of another plant species,
one that is native to BC,

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the Ponderosa pine.

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So if I was a Ponderosa pine
and I had an ego

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and a self-reflective consciousness,

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I think I'd be a little aggravated
when I looked at the cannabis plant.

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You know, there used to be
stands of Ponderosa pine,

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and now there are caverns
and basements full of cannabis.

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So it seems like cannabis
is having a bit of a moment.

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You know, and not only has cannabis
gained a whole lot of territory

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over the last several decades,

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it's also diversified.

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The number of distinct
and robust strains of cannabis

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has skyrocketed
over the last couple decades.

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So in the 75 years or so
since people declared war on cannabis,

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the cannabis plant is bigger,
better and stronger than ever.

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So how have people fared
since we started this battle?

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What's it meant for us as a species?

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And I think it's cost us dearly.

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It's certainly cost us a lot in resources.

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The most recent estimates from the U.S.

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suggest that the cost
of cannabis prohibition

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is over 40 billion dollars per year.

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That's over ten billion dollars
in enforcement,

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30 billion dollars in lost revenue.

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And we can imagine that it's
proportionally similar here in Canada.

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But the cost hasn't only
been economic, of course,

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it's been a terrible cost
in terms of human misery and suffering.

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Countless families
have been disrupted by crime

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and by incarceration.

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And a lot of those come from some
of our most vulnerable communities.

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On top of that, until very recently,

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we've been deprived
of a very safe and effective medicine.

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So, if we look at this as a zero-sum game,

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it seems that cannabis
is coming out way ahead,

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and people are really on the losing end.

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And as much as I respect
and admire the cannabis plant,

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I'm a human psychologist,
not a plant psychologist.

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So my job is to support
human health and well-being.

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And so I'm compelled
to imagine a different way

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that we can maybe tip the scales back
in favor of humanity.

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What would it look like
if we called a truce with cannabis?

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As we seem tantalizingly close to doing.

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So my team and I just published a study

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looking at over 600
medical cannabis users

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from across the country.

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These are people
with many of the conditions

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that characterize the use
of cannabis for therapeutic purposes -

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people with serious conditions,
like cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis,

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arthritis, chronic pain.

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And what we found was that in addition
to treating some of the distinct features

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of these disorders,

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people were using cannabis
for three primary reasons:

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to help sleep,

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to reduce pain

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and to alleviate anxiety.

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These are things that so many
of us seek treatment for.

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And our medicine cabinets
are full of pharmaceutical products

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that are designed
to treat these very symptoms.

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Our team is particularly interested
in the co-occurrance of anxiety and pain.

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We know these things
go very close together -

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that anxiety and pain
really make each other worse.

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So we conducted a follow-up study

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that focused on people who use cannabis
to treat anxiety and pain together.

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And what we found was
that cannabis was most effective

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amongst individuals
who were anxious, in pain,

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and were trying hard
to cope effectively with that pain.

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Cannabis was least effective

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for people who used avoidant
and self-blaming type of coping.

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We also found that among the people
for whom cannabis was most effective,

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nearly 80 percent reported

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that cannabis allowed them
to be more active despite the pain.

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And over 85 percent said that cannabis
helped them to think less about the pain.

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And that makes a lot of sense
given what we now know

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about how cannabis works in the brain.

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A few decades ago,
neuroscientists discovered

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that we have our own system
in our brains and throughout our bodies

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that is uniquely tuned
to working with cannabis

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and cannabis-like substances.

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It's called the endocannabinoid system.

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And we've also found

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that there's a concentration of activity
of this cannabis system in the amygdala.

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That's the part of the brain
that's focused on processing anxiety,

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fear and the emotional content of fear.

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And the activity of cannabis
in the amygdala

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raises a lot of really
interesting possibilities.

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We spend billions and billions
of dollars every year

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on pharmaceutical medications
designed to treat anxiety,

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and our existing medications
are problematic for a number of reasons.

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So our team is also really interested
in how cannabis might work for anxiety

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amongst people who
don't also have pain conditions.

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We just wrapped up a study
led by my student Kim Crosby

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looking at anxiety, cannabis use

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and psychological well-being
amongst college students,

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and we found something
that was pretty surprising,

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something that runs counter
to what you might expect to see

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in studies of substance use
and mental health.

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The frequent cannabis users
in our study -

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those who used cannabis
two or more times a week -

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were less anxious than the non-users,

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and they were less sensitive
to the anxiety that they did have.

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They worried less, and they worried less
about their worrying.

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So, maybe if we can
make peace with cannabis,

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it can help us to start
and make peace with ourselves,

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at least for some people.

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I think it's worth looking into.

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So, if we can start to see cannabis

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as a tool for assisting
with our mental health,

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what's next?

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Well, the best studies
have yet to be done.

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Studies that side by side compare cannabis

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with other popular medicines
to treat anxiety.

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And the reason those studies
haven't been done

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is largely due to barriers
that have been set up by governments

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over the last couple of decades
as part of the war on drugs.

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Fortunately, this is all
starting to change.

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Just a few weeks ago, the United States
Department of Health and Human Services

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gave a green light
to the first clinical trial

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of cannabis for the treatment
of post traumatic stress disorder,

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one of the most severe and debilitating
of the anxiety disorders.

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So it's a very exciting time.

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And if we can start to use cannabis
in this way, what's next?

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I think there are a lot
of other plant medicines

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that we could make peace with

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and that might help us
with our well-being.

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Among the most promising is psilocybin,
also known as magic mushrooms.

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A recent study found

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that just a few treatments with psilocybin

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help people reduce anxiety and depression

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when they're dealing
with terminal illness.

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There's also an ongoing study
looking at the effectiveness of psilocybin

250
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for treating obsessive-
compulsive disorder.

251
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So this is a really exciting time
for those of us

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who are interested
in the psychotherapeutic potential

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of ancient plant medicines like cannabis,
like psilocybin, like ayahuasca.

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There's new studies
coming out all the time,

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and the rate of discovery
is accelerating rapidly.

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What this might mean in a more broad sense

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is that in the coming years and decades,

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we may have access
to some of the very same medicines

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that our ancestors used
effectively for millenia.

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It might also mean that
we might be able to start to address

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some of our mental health concerns
using our gardens or green houses,

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and I think that in itself
could be tremendously empowering.

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It could also help us to reduce
the tremendous environmental cost

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of producing and disposing
of tons and tons

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of pharmaceutical products
into our land and water.

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And finally, I think it means

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that the drug talk
we're going to have with our kids

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will be a lot more fact based
and straightforward

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than the drug talk
that many of us got as kids.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause) (Cheers)