'They will eat the joint:' Calgary pediatrician talks kids and cannabis

Parents have a new "talk" to give to teens — and it's not about the birds and the bees.

Next week, recreational cannabis is set to become legal in Canada. And as people over the age of 18 in Calgary line up at one of two shops to peruse and purchase the drug, there are things parents should know before bringing home the goods.

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Dr. Catherine MacNeil is a pediatrician with the Alberta Medical Association and she spoke with Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray.

This is part of that conversation. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: How does cannabis affect a brain that's still developing?

A: Cannabis affects the developing brain from the fetal brain through infancy, toddlerhood and all the way along.

Our body has its own endocannabinoid system that has a job to do. It's involved in brain development that has a different job across different age spans.

For example, in teens, one of the jobs has to do with pruning to get the right cells to the right job and the right place, make the right kind of connections. When we take cannabis from the outside, an exogenous source, it interferes with that system.

That has all kinds of different effects.

Q: What about a developing baby?

A: Unfortunately, popular culture has suggested that cannabis use in pregnancy, for instance, is safe because it's natural. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

It interferes with that development in the fetal brain. That developing brain inside mom's uterus — cell migration is what gets affected, the cells are trying to get to where they need to be to do their job for the rest of your life.

That may or may not be reversible. We think in some instances it's not reversible. That's going to have long-term effects on your development, your executive function like impulsivity, memory problems. We know that it increases your risk for addiction going forward.

They will drink the chemicals under your sink, they will eat the joint off your coffee table.- Dr. Catherine MacNeil

Q: What about toddlers and preteens?

A: Toddlers often are not using this voluntarily. They are at risk for accidental ingestion. They will find the family or friend's stash around the house and just eat it with curiosity. Most of the jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis have had an increase in their toddler ingestion and emergency room visits [and] poison control calls with this problem.

It's a risk right now — people are already putting it in butter and brownies and cookies. Lots of those recipes are readily available on the internet. So in food products right now.

They will drink the chemicals under your sink, they will eat the joint off your coffee table.

Q: Have we studied this long enough to know what the effects of cannabis are?

A: The answer is sort of yes and no. We certainly know what some of the effects are. But some of the studies are quite old and outdated and may have concentrations of THC that were studied that aren't relevant for today when concentrations tend to be a little bit higher. So we will certainly need to update our information.

However, we know lots of things already about cannabis. Certainly, it causes intoxication right at the time you take it if you smoke it. That comes on in just a few minutes. If you ingest it, eat it, that can take quite a bit longer — an hour or more before you start to feel those effects. When you're intoxicated from cannabis, you can certainly have impaired judgment, impaired motor co-ordination, delayed reaction times. And those things are all problems for driving and other important activities.

Q: We often hear that it's easier for teenagers to get their hands on pot than it is on booze. Is there an argument to be made that the cannabis is at least pure and less potent?

A: We don't know that yet. There's a pre-analysis going on saying that the black market is not likely to disappear in the initial phases because the demand they expect to be quite high and outstrip what's legally available.

Q: Now that it's legal, is the silver lining that the rate of studies and real information will increase?

A: It's a positive if we're able to effect change with policy in the future.

The information that we have is certainly imperfect. It took us a really long time to come around to smoking laws that made sense. Rules and information about the risks of second-hand smoke, third-hand smoke, smoking in cars, all those things took years and years.

I'm hoping that what we've learned from tobacco and risks will help us move forward more quickly when we learn more about cannabis risks.

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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.