Western gets $99K to develop pot teaching tools

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Western’s education faculty is getting nearly $100,000 from Ottawa to develop tools for schooling teens on pot.

The Public Health Agency of Canada on Wednesday announced $223,000 for three organizations to develop public education tools and resources for public health professionals, educators and other stakeholders.

Western will get $99,000 to work on school-based interventions aimed at promoting positive youth development and preventing cannabis use and substance abuse by young people.

“This investment allows us to use evidence-based research to ensure critical key messages are reaching those adults who interact with youth daily,” Claire Crooks, the education professor who heads Western’s Centre for School Mental Health, said in a release.

“Although new legislation changes the landscape, we know a lot about how to help youth develop the assets they need to make healthy choices.”

The news comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government sends Bill C-45, his legal marijuana law, back to the Senate in what are likely the final procedural steps that could see the bill approved in coming days, Postmedia News reported.

Trudeau’s Liberals campaigned three years ago on making Canada the first G-7 nation to legalize recreational marijuana use, and Trudeau has pushed for the market to open this summer. However, Conservative senators have slowed passage of the legislation before a summer recess set for June 22, adding to time pressure.

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the government disagrees with more than a dozen bill amendments made by the Senate last week, according to a notice in the Commons official Wednesday agenda. The government accepted two dozen other changes.

The Commons will now vote on Wilson-Raybould’s response, and the Liberal majority means it will almost certainly pass. Such votes can be scheduled quickly. The Senate typically can respond in as little as a day or two, so if it drops its push for the changes rejected by the House, the pot law could be signed by the Governor General this week.

It would be rare for senators, who are appointed to the upper house, to halt bills sent from elected lawmakers in the lower house.

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