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"Canada Military policy Decision making."
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Reducing medical cannabis use risk among Veterans: A descriptive study
Background
Canadian Veterans experiencing chronic pain report concerns about accessing accurate information on the risks associated with medical cannabis (MC) use. The Lower Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines (LRCUG) were developed to equip individuals who use cannabis recreationally with safer-use strategies. Many of the harm reduction recommendations for recreational cannabis use are relevant and important considerations for MC use. The primary objective of our study was to assess Canadian Veterans’ awareness of and interest in the LRCUG, and engagement in potential higher-risk MC use behaviours.
Methods
Canadian Armed Forces Veterans living with chronic pain (
N
= 582) were recruited online and through the Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans. Participants completed measures on: cannabis use (never, past, current use), sources of cannabis knowledge, mental health, and awareness of and interest in receiving the LRCUG. Chi-Square and post-hoc analyses characterized the sample and assessed for demographic differences based on cannabis use status and awareness of the LRCUG. Engagement in higher-risk MC use behaviours were aligned to LRCUG recommendations, and detailed descriptively.
Results
Veterans who currently use cannabis were more likely to be unemployed (
z
= 3.62,
p
< .01), released as a Non-Commissioned Officer (
z
= -3.83,
p
< .01), and unable to work due a disability (
z
= -3.43,
p
< .01) than Veterans who do not currently use. Less than 30% of Veterans were aware of the LRCUG, with greater awareness among individuals who currently use cannabis (
n
= 356). Engagement in higher-risk MC use behaviours that contradicted LRCUG recommendations ranged from ~ 9% to ~ 85%. Approximately 9% of Veterans experienced co-morbid mental health concerns, yet their MC use was not for mental health purposes (LRCUG recommendation #7). Additionally, almost 85% of Veterans engaged in daily MC use (LRCUG recommendation #5). The majority of Veterans who currently use cannabis engaged in two or more higher-risk MC use behaviours (60.2%; LRCUG recommendation #12). Almost half of all Veterans received their cannabis information from a healthcare provider or the internet.
Conclusions
Our study suggests the importance of safer use guidelines tailored for MC use. Development of lower-risk MC use guidelines can support prescribing practitioners and Veterans with information needed for safer and better-informed MC use decisions, tailored to patients’ needs and circumstances.
Journal Article
Venue Shopping, Political Strategy, and Policy Change: The Internationalization of Canadian Forest Advocacy
A key component of any political strategy is finding a decision setting that offers the best prospects for reaching one's policy goals, an activity referred to as venue shopping. This article supports the theory of venue shopping as laid out in Baumgartner and Jones (1993), but presents a more complicated analysis of its practice than most empirical studies to date. First, venue shopping can be more experimental, and less deliberate or calculated, than is commonly perceived. Second, advocacy groups choose venues not only to advance substantive policy goals but also to serve organizational needs and identities. Finally, venue choice is shaped by policy learning. Advocacy groups choose venues not only for short-term strategic reasons, but also because they have embraced a new understanding of the nature of a policy problem. These factors shape the frequency of venue shopping and thus the pace of policy reform.
Journal Article
Retrospectives: The Cold-War Origins of the Value of Statistical Life
This paper traces the history of the \"Value of Statistical Life\" (VSL), which today is used routinely in benefit-cost analysis of life-saving investments. The “value of statistical life” terminology was introduced by Thomas Schelling (1968) in his essay, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Schelling made the crucial move to think in terms of risk rather than individual lives, with the hope to dodge the moral thicket of valuing \"life.\" But as recent policy debates have illustrated, his move only thickened it. Tellingly, interest in the subject can be traced back another twenty years before Schelling's essay to a controversy at RAND Corporation following its earliest application of operations research to defense planning. RAND wanted to avoid valuing pilot's lives but the Air Force insisted they confront the issue. Thus, the VSL is not only well acquainted with political controversy; it was born from it.
Journal Article
Why Canada Goes to War: Explaining Combat Participation in US-led Coalitions
Canada has taken part in six wars since 1945, all of which have been conducted under US leadership. Despite such military interventionism, there have been no systematic comparative analyses of Canada's decisions to take part in US-led wars. The objective of this article is to develop and test a theoretical framework about why Canada goes to war. More specifically, it seeks to account for variations in Canada's provision of combat forces to multinational interventions led by the United States. It assesses leading theoretical explanations by examining five post–Cold War cases: the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya; the war against ISIS; and the refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq. The article concludes that Canada's willingness to go to war is shaped primarily by a desire to maintain transatlantic alliance unity and enhance Canada's alliance credibility. Threats to national security, the legitimacy of the intervention, government ideology and public opinion are not found to consistently or meaningfully shape Canadian decisions to take part in US-led wars. Le Canada a participé à six guerres, depuis 1945, au sein de coalitions multinationales dirigées par les États-Unis. Malgré cet interventionnisme militaire, peu d’études ont cherché à cerner les motivations qui amènent le Canada à faire la guerre. L'objectif de cet article est d'offrir un cadre analytique capable d'expliquer pourquoi le Canada fait la guerre. Il propose une comparaison structurée et ciblée de six décisions de prendre part, ou non, à des opérations de combat au sein d'une coalition militaire dirigée par les États-Unis, au Kosovo, en Irak, en Afghanistan, en Libye et contre le groupe État islamique. L'article démontre que le Canada semble faire la guerre principalement pour deux raisons complémentaires : afin d'assurer l'unité de l'Alliance transatlantique ainsi que son statut d'allié fiable. En contrepartie, les menaces contre la sécurité nationale, la légitimité de l'intervention militaire, l'idéologie du gouvernement et l'opinion publique n'ont pas influé de manière systématique ou significative sur la décision de faire la guerre.
Journal Article
How Systems Analysis, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, or Benefit-Cost Analysis First Became Influential in Federal Government Program Decision-Making
In 1948, the RAND Corporation, formed to connect military planning with research and development decisions, became an independent nonprofit organization. Before then, cost-effectiveness analysis, benefit-cost analysis, and systems analysis had no established home in the federal government. In the 1950s, under the leadership of Charles Hitch, Chief, RAND Economics, undertook a program of activities they called “systems analysis,” including evaluation of the costs and effectiveness of weapon systems. In 1961, Robert McNamara appointed Hitch to be the Comptroller of the Department of Defense and invited Hitch to carry out his vision he described as “Programming and Systems Analysis.” Programming became the Planning, Programming, Budgeting System (PPBS) and the Five-Year Defense Program that linked strategies to forces to budgets. Systems Analysis assisted the Secretary to make choices of weapon systems and strategies. In 1965, Hitch returned to California and ultimately became President of the university. McNamara wanted Systems Analysis to report directly to him, and on his recommendation, President Lyndon Johnson appointed me Assistant Secretary for Systems Analysis. In 1966, the President directed that all departments in the executive branch establish offices based on the Systems Analysis model. In 1967, Henry S. Rowen became President of the RAND Corporation. He broadened RAND’s scope beyond the military to include Health Services, education, urban problems including homelessness, ethics in scientific research, and climate research. In 1970, Rowen led the establishment of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, offering a doctoral degree in Public Policy Analysis to extend widely the application of the RAND Systems Analysis approach to many fields.
Journal Article
Does Standing up for sovereignty pay off politically? Arctic military announcements and governing party support in Canada from 2006 to 2014
The defence of Arctic sovereignty has gathered high levels of support from the Canadian population in the past 40 years. However, the relationship between public opinion and decision makers is more ambiguous, in particular that between decisions taken by the governing party and an effect in the general population. This is especially true for foreign policy issues. Hence, this article offers a test to assess whether standing up for Arctic sovereignty translates into concrete political gains for the governing party. We gathered federal party support levels reported in 859 opinion polls conducted from 2006 to 2014 in Canada. By focusing on sovereignty operations held by National Defence Operations NUNALIVUT and NANOOK and aggregating poll results into a \"poll of polls,\" we found that standing up for Arctic sovereignty is politically profitable in certain circumstances.
Journal Article
Ontological security and the power of self-identity: British neutrality and the American Civil War
Why did Great Britain remain neutral during the American Civil War? Although several historical arguments have been put forth, few studies have explicitly used International Relations (IR) theories to understand this decision. Synthesising a discursive approach with an ontological security interpretation, I propose an alternative framework for understanding security-seeking behaviour and threats to identity. I assess the impact Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had upon the interventionist debates in Great Britain. I argue that the Proclamation reframed interventionist debates, thus (re)engendering the British anxiety over slavery and removing intervention as a viable policy. I conclude by proposing several issues relevant to using an ontological security interpretation in future IR studies.
Journal Article
Canada, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan
This article analyzes the Government of Canada's decision to lobby the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to lead the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2003. Although studies have been conducted on Canada's choice to deploy to Kandahar province, the decision to lobby NATO, and the diplomatic efforts that resulted, have been given little attention. In addition, Ottawa's decision to propose joint leadership of the mission with Germany in 2003 warrants further study. This article considers three key motivations evident in the Canadian government's thinking—first, its view of deployment to Afghanistan as an alternative to deployment to Iraq; second, its interest in developing relations with Germany; and finally, its more general motivation to return to the conflict.
Journal Article