The Ben Mulroney Show - Homeless people seeking shelter in Hospitals and Trump bans Transgender Women in Sports

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ben discusses homeless people seeking shelter in Hospitals -Trump takes action to ban transgender women from women’s sports -Keen to test your driving skills while high? CAM-H running four studies on the topic with Guest: Patricia Di Ciano, CAM-H scientist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and to embrace peak sports action. Visit BedMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older, Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the ConX Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BedMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hello everybody, Ben Mulroney here on The Ben Mulroney Show in this nine o'clock hour for the first time since last Thursday, I believe. And you may have wondered where I was and why Greg Brady was horning in on my territory.

And I was asked if I would sit in for Jeff on Global TV's The Morning Show. And I had some experience doing morning TV and so it was really nice to get back there. On top of that, I got to work with my two original bosses, the two people who taught me about television, who are now running the number one morning show in the country, the morning show. And it was great to work with Carolyn and their entire team. I got to do all this fun stuff I used to do.

But in order to do that, I had to miss this first hour of the show. And I missed that connection with all of our listeners on CFPL in London and 640 here in Toronto. And look, we've got a lot of news that we're gonna get to, so the heavy stuff, but I wanted to sort of ease in to this nine o'clock hour by talking to you about something that, well, my hot take on something.

There's a website that is putting out, has asked the very important question, why are Toronto street hot dogs so pricey? It's a big question and an important question. And back when I was far younger and I had a far faster metabolism, I would eat those things morning, noon and night, mostly night and things morning, noon, and night. Mostly night and early morning,

because I lived in the area of town that used to be like club land. I was a block and a half away from half of the biggest clubs in the city, and I would go out all the time, all the time. I used to say dumb stuff like Tuesday is the new Friday, and I would live by that credo. And so I had to come in home at two in the morning. The hot dogs were right there. The street

meat was right there. And I would get them to grill it up. I'd put ketchup on honey mustard and the fake bacon bits. That was my order. But apparently they cost about six bucks. And my hot take on this is that that is a fair price for what you're getting. That is a substantial dog that is flame grilled. The buns are big. You get a lot of condiment options versus, I guess the high watermark in the street meat industry

would be New York City hot dogs, the Subrets, you know, the ones with the snap. They are boiled, they are tiny, and they can cost between one and three bucks. U.S. So, with the conversion, that's close to like, you know, a buck seventy and five and a half bucks per dog. No, not five and a half. Five, right? So five bucks for what I like to call a two-biter, right? Those are two biters

easy. And they're delicious too, but that's a snack. Like that's a that's a snackable. But Toronto Street Meat is a meal and they don't charge extra for the condiments so you could get that corn salsa that I like so much. You can get all that stuff, the corn relish rather, and you know they toast the bun for you. Like they care about serving you a delicious meal at two in the morning and God there is nothing better. If I had to go back in time and be walking home from one of those If I had to go back in time and be walking home from one of those parties, yeah, there's nothing better. It really, it scratches an itch. So my hot take is that six bucks is not overly expensive for what you're getting. And let's not forget, like, I mean, does anybody think that these

street vendors get to operate free of charge from the city? No. I don't know what sort of regulatory hoops they've got to jump through, how much red tape they've got, how many fees and licenses they've got to pay for. You know, they've got, I'm sure they're told where they can be and when they can operate. So they got to get what they can get when they can get it where they can get it. And so if it's six bucks, like that's that's money well spent. And I and they deserve it because they operate on days like today when it's kind of cold out there kind of wet. So to them, I say, I'm soldier on.

And maybe one day if I happen to be in the neighborhood at two in the morning, again, I'll have one of those those hot dogs But six six bucks. Yeah, I think it's fair So I've been gone for three days no fuck no almost five days six days Why is this next story still a story? First of all, it wasn't a story to begin with but Doug Ford's quote-un unquote hot mic moment where a conservative premier conceded that he wanted a conservative to win the US election that was supposed to be this turning point in the election.

Why are we still talking about it? Here's Doug Ford again asked about his hot mic comments. Just keeping on the Trump theme, you were furious during the pandemic when he was president and he cut off PPE for Canada, forcing us to make it here. And yet you still said on Monday to the firefighters that you supported him. What were you thinking? Well, there's Trump 1.0 and then there was Trump 2.0. And I always believe in working together. I don't care what political stripe you come from. It doesn't matter if it was President Biden, President Obama, or

or President Trump. You have to work collaboratively with everyone across all political stripes and that's exactly what we do. Doesn't that make you look like a bit of a hypocrite though though? I mean, other than the tariff warning during the campaign and what he did with PPE, there was January 6th, there was the felony convictions, there was all the other things, the impeachments. What do you say to voters who think that maybe you've lost your moral compass?

Well, you know something, I don't think there's too many people that have stood up for Ontarians and Canadians, like I have, I think I've been very clear where I stand. Okay, so many things to unpack there. First of all, you can hear the condescension dripping from the voice in the question of that journalist. I mean, way to telegraph your perspective and where you lie.

So I don't know who that person is, but you don't telegraph your thoughts. You just let the words speak for themselves. That's my opinion, my humble opinion. But I mean, I think you gotta pick a lane. January 6th is irrelevant to the voters of Ontario, to the pocketbooks of Ontario. The felony convictions are irrelevant.

We are not voters here, but we do know we're gonna have to deal with somebody on the other side of the fence. So it doesn't matter. If the American voters are gonna vote and that guy's on the ballot, then he is a valid option. Doesn't, none of that other stuff matters. And for a politician up here to get caught up in that is to our detriment because we've seen what

happens when a leader takes a position on sort of the moral fitness of Donald Trump. We saw with Justin Trudeau standing in a room of feminists, decrying America's lost opportunity to elect their first female president, and then he doubled down, I will forever be a feminist. Do you not think Donald Trump saw that? Do you think that Donald Trump heard those words? And we know he's thin-skinned. We know he took issue with that. Like, as a journalist, pick a lane. Or just decide you

don't like Doug Ford and go after him for something else. But that was a nothing burger of a story then and it has even less value now. and you as a journalist wasted your time. You wasted your time and I think you gave Doug Ford a layup. So good on you. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and this is a part of the show I have missed since being off the nine o'clock hour. It's time for a conversation with you our listeners 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. There is a video circulating online of a man walking

through what is essentially a beautiful lobby of a Toronto hospital. I believe it's Toronto Western Hospital, but I could be mistaken. And it's at night. And there are seating areas in this atrium. That's what it is. It's not a lobby. It's an atrium. And he is showing how everyone sitting there at night is in his estimation, homeless or and or using drugs and or suffering from some sort of mental health crisis. And we'll play it for you. If it requires any more context beyond that, after we listen to it, I will provide it. This is a hospital in Toronto and everyone is homeless here.

The hospital become a homeless shelter and the hospital become a homeless shelter. And the libraries become a homeless shelter, the TTC become a homeless shelter. And all of them are homeless. And this is the one of the hospital. Look at that. She's a drug. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. Oh my God. Now, yeah, I want to be clear. Some of the images are quite shocking. There's one woman in particular sitting upright in a chair and she looks like a zombie.

And I want to be clear, when I play this, I am not playing this because I think that those people need to, those people, the people who are taking refuge inside that hospital have done anything wrong. If I put myself in their shoes, and if I had been outside last night in the snow, in the cold, you could be sure I would have found refuge anywhere I could.

And if that meant the atrium of a hospital, I would have gone there 100%. And so I do not fault them at all, but I do wanna hear from you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Have you seen this? What can be done about homeless people sleeping in hospitals or the TTC or libraries?

Do you want police enforcing and booting them out? Is it time to stop dancing around this issue and actually fix the homeless situation? 416-870-6400 or 1-triple-8-225-talk. I've said many times before, you know, living in a big city means standing up for everyone in our community. And if we have a homelessness issue, then that is an issue that reflects poorly on us as a city. And you should,

if you can't look at your fellow Torontonian who is down on their luck and who is in need of help and not feel empathy for them, then you should get your heart checked, because you probably don't have one. And again, I'm not I'm not here offering solutions. I'm not elected. I have not put myself forth. I think we demand we should be demanding from our elected officials, a plan that goes beyond simply throwing money down a rat hole. Because we've tried that before and hasn't worked.

Let's welcome Vince to the show. Vince, thanks so much for calling in. Hi Ben, how's it going? I'm well, thanks. I was telling your screener that I've been bringing my father back and forth from the hospital. He's been ill. And every time we've gone to emerge,

and this is a particular hospital on Bayview. So it's a good part of town. And every time we've gone there, we've seen someone either with mental health or for sure homeless Two or three at a time. That would be every event. I've been I've seen two or three people I I don't blame them the staff. They're phenomenal They provide them any care and aid and as well as any food to help them But back to your point, I think it costs I think it takes a heck of a lot more work

You know to reopen the facilities to help these people that need help as opposed to throwing money down a rabbit hole that has no end to it. And just to say, well, we put a million dollars towards this, but no one actually looks down there. But yeah, I've seen it firsthand and it is, to be honest with you, it is a burden on the healthcare system because this is not their fourth date, but they will not turn away anybody, which is amazing to be honest with you, it is a burden on the healthcare system because this is not their fourth date. No. But they will not turn away anybody, which is amazing to see. Hey, thank you very much, Vince. I appreciate it. I hope your dad's getting better. Just for context for you, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has estimated that more than 80,000 people in the

province were homeless last year, and that $11 billion over 10 years would be required to end chronic homelessness. And here's something that really hit me in my heart, that city data in Toronto shows that there were 331 homeless deaths in 2022, 300 homeless deaths in 2023. And I ask you this question, if we had over 300 deaths of cyclists or pedestrians on the streets of Toronto, what do you think the uproar would be? How much would we be mobilizing in the streets to make sure it never happened again? The value that we place on human life depends on on whose human life it is.

on human life depends on on whose human life it is. And that is should be unacceptable in Toronto, the good. Ben, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for calling. Hey, good morning. You know, your last comment, just put it into perspective. You know, we spend what 26 million a year on bike lanes, for the privileged people complaining about that. And here we are, no one talks about this issue. but I experienced this I had a family member in the hospital for quite a while in the last couple of years and I had to stay there every night for almost a year at two hospitals and the issue where I was was more of people on drugs coming in and out of the hospital, staying there overnight. And on weather like this, you just, you know, they have to stay somewhere. So I'm not going to talk about that.

But my point of calling is I've been talking, I've been on the radio before, I've talked to my counselor and so forth who, in one year and out the other, if you want to be a sanctuary city and the federal government doesn't want to close the taps to, you know, migrants coming here undocumented, and look at the process that happens. They come in, they fill up all the homeless shelters, then we put them in hotels at the cost of a billion dollars plus across Canada. Then we're building special buildings for them, the homeless, then we're, then I've called in saying, just look at what happened in New York and in San Francisco. And six months later, it happens here. So then they start taking over schools, then that you're just going to run out of space.

And let's not forget, let's not forget the wild west of the free drugs that we've been free, free and legal drugs that only exacerbates the situation. Ben, thank you very much for your call. I want to take a few more before the break. Bill, thank you for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. Yeah, thanks for taking the call. So I wonder if there's been any correlation done with the homelessness and those who are homeless on ODSP or Ontario works. Because at certain I can only speak for the ODSP personsp person person that's living off of just

self a fourteen hundred dollars a month uh... right out of the gate there's no way that they're going to be able to live a viable life on that kind of money so raise those uh... disability programs funding and you might alleviate a large chocked out all of them but a large chunk of the homeless just because then more opportunities open up for how they can best conduct their lives, rather than being turf to the curb,

and trying to make the best of life on the street, which includes trying to escape at all by the means of using drugs. Yeah. But then you but you but up against the the judicial system that has been pushing back against what I think are common sense suggestions on how to deal with these things, where the courts have been saying, you cannot infringe on this person's human right to take drugs. They have agency over their lives, and they have every right to do that, including in spaces like public parks and close to schools. So there's, I think this is a multifaceted crisis

that won't be solved with a silver bullet, but I do thank you for your call. Shiva, thank you so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, how you doing, Ben? Good. Good morning. Morning. Yeah, mine has been a bit of a personal experience.

I had a major heart, I had aortic root aneurysms. Anybody that knows about the heart who's listening they know that's very serious. And I had a aortic root replacement surgery at an amazing hospital downtown, amazing doctors. Everything was, you know, as I was recovering two days after surgery, after the ICU in my room, there was a homeless guy who checked in

and he was smoking weed and they were lighting up something that looks like crack in my hospital room on the seventh floor. And I'm sitting there with a stitch in the middle of my chest. I'm feeling very vulnerable and I'm looking around like I have no... the nurses I feel bad for them because they can't enforce it because they're scared. This this guy had people visiting him other homeless people. Yeah I had three four of them next to me and they're yelling and screaming to the point I had to actually complain quietly

so I wouldn't be upset with me and strangle me while I'm like laying there at my open chest and How did he get resolved? eventually, I requested to move to another room and get resolved? Eventually I requested to move to another room and after that they called the security and then once they got rid of me and made sure I was okay then the security came and escorted the guy out. Oh gosh and how's your recovery going? I was very lucky. Thank you Dr. Mark Peterson. He's a genius. We lost him to America after me by the way. Oh my god that's a whole that's a whole other conversation. Hey,

Stephen, thank you so much. Best best in your recovery. And thank you all for your calls. I'm gonna need more of them after the break because coming up Donald Trump is making us face some uncomfortable truths. That's next on the Ben Mulroney show. Wealthsimple's big winter bundle is our best match offer yet. Get a 2% match when you transfer over an eligible RRSP. For a $50,000 transfer, that's a thousand dollar cash bonus. Enough to buy a fancy parka. A ticket to somewhere you don't

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maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Maybe reach out to TV Direct Investing. Yesterday in Washington, Donald Trump took executive action to deliver on a political issue that was central to his campaign, banning transgender women from competing in women's sports. So the action is called Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports. And in a signing ceremony, he was surrounded by, I mean, the image is quite startling, dozens of women, young women, some in athletic uniforms, where he signed an executive order when he said,

and he said, with this executive order, the war on women's sports is over. And I want to hear from our listeners at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225 talk because with a lot of these executive orders, it feels like Donald Trump is doing and saying something bold. And I'm not, that's not a value judgment,

it is bold because others have not said it and and Because of that it is going to force a lot of other people from other parts of the world to take a position or start a conversation whether they want to or not and I want to know where you stand on this is it time for Canada to take a definitive position on this I'll be completely honest that four or five years ago, I was genuinely frightened to even ask questions on this topic. Genuinely. I believe it was a it was a ever changing situation. It was moving ever-changing situation. It was moving very quickly.

I woke up one day and there weren't two genders anymore. And I genuinely had questions, good faith questions. And I saw the reaction that other people were getting, getting canceled for simply asking questions, being tarred as a transphobe for asking questions. I saw what happened at JK Rowling. And I certainly don't have the clout or the protection or the billions that JK Rowling has. And I wasn't even trying to take a position that JK Rowling had.

I simply was curious and I want to learn more. But I saw what happened with people who asked questions and I kept my mouth shut. I kept my mouth shut. And it feels like because Donald Trump has opened this door, we're sort of forced to have this conversation. And I don't think that's a bad thing. And I want to hear from you. So let's start with Mark. Mark, thank you for calling. No problem, Ben. Welcome back. Thank you. So the fact that you're thinking about or having to keep your mouth shut is a problem.

That means you can't express yourself freely. Now, people are. People like Riley Gaines that have been an advocate for women and women's sports and girls and girls sports, it has come a long way. I cannot believe it has taken this long to see how unfair that whole transgender movement

in women's sports is. And for all the women out there that finally have some kind of belief that now everything will be on a level playing field again, it's about time. And the left is going to go crazy on this. Let them.

I think the narrative is starting to shift now where people are fed up with this mentality. And I don't want to call it woke because I don't think it's woke I think it's a frame of mind that people literally have and think that they can impose on everybody else and it makes zero sense to me and I'm sure to many others but I'm glad this has happened and I hope that it doesn't get misconstrued as something that that should continue when really it should not. Mark thank you very much for your call I appreciate it. Let's let's welcome Andrew to the show. Mark, thank you very much for your call. I appreciate it. Let's let's welcome Andrew to the show. Andrew, what do you think about this? Is it time for us

to have an honest conversation? Are were people being silenced before? How do you feel today? I am a sport coach, by the way. Oh, great. Good morning. Yeah. So I'm a sport coach, a former competitive athlete. A long time ago, I knew that, for instance, competing in my sport against biological women in a competitive sense could be dangerous. And so I knew that a long time ago before we had any conversations. Now being a coach now and seeing what Title IX did down in the States, that is giving women the same standing as men. That kind of morphed into something really good that we need to not just talk about but adopt. And we talked about this, I have lots of former competitive athlete friends as well.

And we're talking about, okay, so the conversation about the other, so to speak, the trans athletes. Okay, what to do with them? Well, we all talked about this and it's agreed that if you're biologically male and we have an open category, the open category can include everybody. Yeah.

It's an open just means open and there's nothing wrong with being from any gender. Wherever you're coming from, you can compete in that. You can get all the glory you want, but you're competing in something that is a level field. It's like saying in, for instance, in bodybuilding, there's natural bodybuilding and professional where you're allowed to be a terrorist or not. And Andrew, I take your point, but back just a few years ago, to simply ask that question was to deny the orthodoxy that was foisted on us. That, I was amazed that it was just something that I felt appeared overnight.

That to suggest that is to deny that trans women are women. Because if you accept that trans women are women, then the debate is over that they belong in the category in which they identify. And like I said, I wasn't trying to say that I believed one thing or another. I wanted to get more information. But the fear that I had was the simple act of asking the question was in and of itself a declaration of war.

And I wasn't looking to start a war, but there felt like there were some people out there with itchy trigger fingers who were looking to pick people off. And I did not have the job security or the ability to self-fund my life. And out of fear, I kept my mouth shut. Let's welcome to the show, who do we have?

We've got Mark. Mark, how are you today? Good, how are you doing, bud? I'm okay, thanks. You's welcome to the show, who do we have? We've got Mark. Mark, how are you today? Good, how are you doing, Ben? I'm okay, thanks. You know what's funny about this? The adult recreational leagues have solved this problem 30 years ago. It's called co-ed sports.

It's like every sport, whether it's basketball, soccer, volleyball, you know, name of sport, Ultimate Frisbee, you have co-ed leagues, co-ed teams, you could register for men's, you can register for women's, or you can register for coed done. Sure. But when you're when you're because when you're playing at an Olympic level or world class level, the speed at which objects are coming at your head, the speed at which you know, and the stakes involved as well.

The difference between finishing first and fifth is the difference between a million dollar contract and having to work at Subway. And so the impact on someone's life is life changing, depending on where you fall on the podium. And so I absolutely get that. At a certain level, everybody can play with everybody. You know, softball in a beer league, you're literally lobbing the ball softball in college. Women are throwing that

ball. I don't know, 50 miles an hour. That can hurt. And a man can throw it. What? 70 miles an hour. So anyway, thank you for the call. And let's say hi to Jim. Hi Ben. Hi. I applaud Trump. I know a lot of people don't like to do that. He's a guy with nothing to lose. He's got nothing to lose. Right from he shoots him the hip and our government should take note. It's just common sense to me. It's common sense. You can't put a guy in with a girl in hockey and checking. It just didn't make any sense to me. And I'm happy. I'm happy for the girls.

Well, I'm glad to hear it. Thank you very much. Dean, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Good morning. I think there's a great protection for the women and girls. I've got a 12-year-old daughter who plays full contact box across. She's been playing with the boys since she was three, but we know that in the coming year she will be up against allies and boys with bigger bones and bigger muscles. Yeah. We don't want her getting headshots and concussions and twisted knees unnecessarily.

We need the protection for the girls who want to play those kind of sports with other girls. Hey, thank you for the call. I think we've got time for one last one. And that's how we welcome Sebastian to the Ben Mulroney show. Good morning, sir. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you.

Ben, you made me hungry talking hot dogs, man. I cannot lie to you. Holy shit. It's like sour, coke, ketchup, and mustard, all the way. We run the gamut on this show. We talk transgender sports and hot dogs and everything in between. Hey, let's talk some Blue Jays at least once in a while.

But put it this way, you're born a male, you play male sports. You're born a woman, you play female sports. End of story. Go leave school. Thank you very much. I appreciate the call, Sebastian. I appreciate everybody's input on this conversation. At least we're able to safely have a conversation today

without fear of reprisals for simply asking the questions. So I appreciate everybody for calling in. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. One of the crown jewels of, I believe, the city of Toronto and indeed all of Canada as it relates to public health and mental health is CAMH. And it is, it does yeoman's work and it is at the front line of really helping Canada and Toronto take control over the mental health and drug addiction crisis that we're going through. And they do a lot of work that years later pays off. And right now they've got a program

where they use state of the art driving simulators at the center for addiction and mental health, running four studies looking at the impacts of cannabis use on driving. And I think this is a really important work. They're investigating how well people drive in the morning after getting stoned and how consuming cannabis and tobacco together can impact driving. The other two studies are looking at the effects of consuming edibles before driving and how different age groups respond to being high behind the wheel. And the image of this driving simulator, I

mean, it looks just like what it would look like in a car. And so we're joined now by Patricia DiCiano from CAMH. She's a scientist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Patricia, thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Okay, so this very serious work, but there is an element of curiosity and humor that sort of when I read this story, that was that I just want to ask you about like, who's joining in on this study? How does one get involved in this study?

Right. So we advertise primarily on the TTC on the subway. So people will see the ad and they'll reply to that and they'll send us an email or they'll do an online survey. And then we do an eligibility assessment. So we have certain criteria and each study has different criteria. It's very important that it's safe to be in the study because we do give them cannabis, whether an edible or a joint,

and we wanna make sure that it's safe for them to be in the study. So we do have medical and psychiatric screening to make sure it's safe. Okay, so they come in, but let's say they've crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's and they are eligible. They come in and what's a day look like for them? Well, each study is slightly different, but in general, I think it's safe to say that we do a number of tests in the morning to ensure that they haven't used cannabis or alcohol or any any other sort of drugs that they're not that they're asked to not to use prior to the session and then we do a number of tests driving we also look at cognition so learning memory attention because we know that driving is

influenced by changes in the way we process information. So we also look at that. We ask them how they're feeling, mood. We take blood, sometimes oral fluid to look at PHC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis. And then they smoke or have an edible. And then we repeat those assessments a couple of times at different time intervals to get a sense of how long the effects of cannabis last. Now, how many people are you going to have involved in this study?

Each study is slightly different. So the sample sizes range from about 36 up to about 135. It really depends on the study. They use different designs and they have different aims. So the sample sizes really vary. Now, given the fact that in in the real world, the impact of something like this would be dealt with by the police, do you work with the police on the parameters of a test like this?

So certainly our work does help to educate the police in terms of the best ways to detect driving after the use of cannabis. So we know that there are new types of cannabis on the market, edibles, high potency cannabis, vapes that people are using more and more. And really we need to know a lot more about how these different, these new formulations, these new methods affect driving. So definitely our work educates them

and we publish it in journals and we go to conferences and we do sit on some boards and we do liaise with these relevant stakeholders. Well, you know, I know that there are certain types of people who are, they would clutch their pearls at a story like this and say, oh, we shouldn't be doing anything like this. But this is, you have to take the world as it is. And as it is, there are people who will consume cannabis and we'll get behind the wheel of a car and we need to know what to look car. And we need to know what to look

out for and we need to know how to protect ourselves. Absolutely. And it's really always surprising to me how many people I speak to who admit that they do drive after using cannabis. We know from the statistics that it's about 20 to 30 percent of people who use cannabis in the past year who will drive after using cannabis. And people are not aware that it's about 20 to 30 percent of people who have used cannabis in the past year who will drive after using cannabis and people are not aware that it's dangerous they think it's safe because they they feel sometimes they feel like they're not speeding or they're not you know crashing into things so they feel like it's safe but it actually isn't we know from the research it's very dangerous and we are trying to get the word out that people

really shouldn't drive after using cannabis. Now I know that there's the studies ongoing but there's got to be a baseline knowledge at this point. I mean is there a safe amount of time from after you consume cannabis before you say you know what after X amount of hours by and large 90% of people are fine they can get behind the wheel. So the way cannabis lasts in the body really varies based on a number of different parameters. One is how often a person uses cannabis. One is age. The other is the type of cannabis. We know that edibles last in the body much longer than smoked cannabis. And really we have very little information. There's only one published study I believe on how edibles affects driving. Only one?

Only one, yeah, that I know of that we published it last year. So it's really very, very new, this type of work. And we don't know how these different methods really, how long they last and how much they can affect driving and for how long. I mean, when I hear that, it surprises me that we have a legal framework that allows for these, for people to consume cannabis and edibles. And yet it doesn't seem that the, I mean, to me, it feels like the research should have been done first, or at least earlier, so that we would find ourselves not today, years after these things have been legalized, and we still don't have enough data to support, you know, the safety on our roads. Well, I think, you know, it was probably hard to predict in which direction these things would go.

When cannabis was legalized in 2018 for non-medical purposes, the primary route of administration was smoking in joints, and that's how most people use their cannabis. Since legalization, of course, edibles were legalized in 2019, we've really seen the use of edibles go up. About 30 or 40% of people now use their cannabis as an oral ingestion and the use of joints has gone down. So I think, you know, it's hard to predict how these things will go. We also see a very sharp increase in potency of cannabis on the legal market.

And the research is just catching up now as well. Now, lastly, it does seem like the pendulum is swinging back. There was a point where there was a great number of people who were advocates for the legalization or rather the decriminalization of every drug. Is that on CAMH's radar to do this, a similar test like this amongst a number of street drugs, not just cannabis? So I can speak to what's happened with cannabis legalization since 2018, since cannabis has been legalized. We do know that it's been effective in the sense that it's decreased the criminal activity around the use of cannabis. But we have seen a lot of other effects of legalization. So we do see that there's increased in emergency room visits for people

having sort of cannabis hyperamnesia syndrome. We see an increase in psychosis. We see more emergency room visits for children who accidentally ingest edibles. We do see that there's some evidence for an increase in driving after the use of cannabis, and the use of cannabis in general has gone up, especially in older populations. So I think it's important to really weigh the pros and cons of legalization of the various drugs. Patricia DiTiano from CAMH, I want to thank you very much. You guys do tremendous work over there. I appreciate you and I hope you have a great day.

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