As part of a pharmacy team’s effort to advance public health and prevent disease (Principle 6 of the ACP Code of Ethics), ACP encourages you to read the message below from Health Canada about preventing accidental cannabis poisonings among children. Health Canada has provided several resources to help health professionals share tips with community members about how to prevent these situations from happening in their homes. Please take some time to review the material and consider how your team may use them to help make our communities healthier and safer.
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Dear colleagues,
As you may be aware, accidental poisonings in children from edible cannabis are a serious risk and can be life-threatening. Hospitals have seen an increase in visits to the emergency room and poison centres have seen an increase in calls.
This spring, Health Canada launched a campaign to:
- Raise awareness about accidental poisonings from edible cannabis products and the related harms;
- Provide information on what a poisoning looks like and what to do; and,
- Educate on preventative measures such as safe storage and choosing legal cannabis.
Given the importance of this issue, we invite you to explore the campaign materials, and to please consider sharing these important messages with your networks and audiences. The Health Canada content below can also be incorporated into your own outreach materials.
Overview of the campaign materials:
- Two new webpages have been added online which provide information on:
- A brochure titled “How to help prevent cannabis poisoning in children” is available for viewing online, or order complimentary printed copies for your network.
- A video titled “How to help prevent cannabis poisoning in children” is available for viewing online, along with shareable versions for social media.
- Social media content is available to share from your accounts. You can choose to like or share the posts included in the Dropbox below, or should you like to post this content directly on your own social media platforms, we have provided imagery and sample post language.
Visit our Dropbox to view or download shareable content.
Thank you to all our partners for your help with communicating to Canadians about this important issue.
If you have questions about Health Canada’s public education outreach on cannabis, please contact Education.Cannabis@hc-sc.gc.ca.
