Social Impact Fund
2023 Social Impact Fund Partner: Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Last updated September 8, 2025 | Published on September 8, 2025
Prostate cancer is a significant public health concern, posing considerable mortality and morbidity risks among men. Presently, the causes of prostate cancer are not well understood, and there is a lack of robust evidence for specific risk or protective factors. Notably, cannabinoids have been implicated in the modulation of prostate cancer through CB1 and CB2 receptor activation. However, the long-term impact of cannabis use on prostate cancer development remains largely unexplored.
This study, Investigating an Association Between Lifetime Cannabis Exposure and Prostate Cancer Incidence, addresses this research gap by investigating the association between lifetime cannabis use and prostate cancer incidence, leveraging a single-centre case-control study design. This study is part of a growing effort to better understand the health implications of cannabis in the era of legalization in Canada.
Impact
- Four presentations (two podium sessions and two poster sessions) to key stakeholders
- 2,500 people engaged in survey
- Two manuscripts drafted for academic publication
- One academic open-access publication in a peer-reviewed journal
- One podcast episode: Prostate Cancer and Cannabis Use: Exploring Results from a Case-Control Study
- One video created: Exploring the Impact of Cannabis on Prostate Cancer Risk
Meet the Princess Margaret team
The project team consists of a dynamic collaboration between Dr. Tara Rosewall, Ihtisham Ahmad and Ronald Chow. Together, they embody a synergistic blend of medical knowledge, research acumen and a commitment to community health, positioning the team to make meaningful contributions to health care.
DR. TARA ROSEWALL
Dr. Tara Rosewall is a clinician investigator at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Institute and an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine
IHTISHAM AHMAD
Ihtisham Ahmad is currently a medical student at the University of Toronto with a bachelor of Life Sciences from McMaster University.
RONALD CHOW
Ronald Chow studied epidemiology at Yale University and biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto
“Despite legalization, it is still very difficult to find funding support for cannabis research. This hampers our ability to conduct rigorous studies on cannabis and its effects, and results in a reliance on anecdotal claims and misinformation about cannabis. Thanks to the support of the Social Impact Fund, we have been able to answer an important question about the association between cannabis and prostate health.”
– Dr. Tara Rosewall, lead investigator
