Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to say that we have that same system in B.C., and it really is a very important tool for the surveillance of patients as well as prescribing habits of physicians.
I want to thank everybody.
I want to say to Ms. Giudice-Tompson that I really am sad to hear about your son. I think you are a very important example of how, when someone is given a drug and dies of an overdose or dies from misuse of the drug, that can happen to anyone. It's not limited to those people, as you said, who we consider to be throwaway people, the people who are marginalized, the people no one seems to care about. It's really important that people understand the nature of how drugs work on the human brain and on the human body, and how they are not respecters of persons. It's important if we're going to deal with this, that we remember that. I want to thank you for pointing that out to us.
I want to thank Dr. Ulan for bringing up drugs other than just opiates and the opioids being prescribed. I want to thank you for bringing up benzodiazepines. I know Don MacPherson brought those up as well. We need to bring in the whole range of drugs: Ritalin, tranquilizers, sedatives, and narcotics of different kinds.
There are so many things we don't know, because we don't have a database. It's clear today—I heard from everybody—that we need a database. I know the provinces have databases and some provinces have good databases and some tracking. I think it's really important, as Dr. Selby said, that we have a federal leadership role in which the federal government coordinates all of this information into one place. This is something that is a federal role, to be a clearing house, to do data gathering, to have some national statistics, pan-Canadian statistics, that will help us to understand the nature of the problem and how it differs in each region, and what other regions are doing that might be helpful.
There's a question I want to ask. It's not a particularly scientific one—or it is a scientific one, actually. Don MacPherson talked about recreational use and prescription use. It is obvious that we have people who use a drug that is prescribed for them because it is necessary for their care, and it's obvious that there are some people who do not have a need for the drug in terms of a physical or mental problem, but they actually have a need for the drug in terms of an addictive problem, so they have a need for the drug per se.
What would you say is the difference between those people who use drugs recreationally and those who use them for prescription reasons and who may or may not become addicted to them, other than the criminal element of it? What are the differences you see in terms of how a federal government or governments should deal with this?