Health committee  Certainly not to brag about Nova Scotia, because that's where I'm from—

Health committee  —but our program has that very system. We've just moved to a 24-hour access system. A physician anywhere can access that system and know what's being prescribed. As well, we have an integration with police so that with our heavy hitters, we can advise the prescription monitoring

Health committee  I have the report here.

Health committee  I can only look at my own police service and you could probably extrapolate that for other places. Probably about 5% to 10% of our time is driven by just prescription drugs.

Health committee  A certain part of our committee—we have Dr. Bowes, our chief medical examiner from Nova Scotia— is going to be looking at best practices across Canada in those situations. The police are doing it from an investigative perspective and learning what needs the coroners have in those

Health committee  I'm still looking at that. I wouldn't know, but if you talk to any chief of police, generally most crime is driven by drugs. I wouldn't be able to tell you whether it's prescription drugs or heroin, but most crime is driven by drugs.

Health committee  On prescription drugs and what drives that? No. That's part of our research project.

Health committee  There are DRE, drug recognition expert, officers across the country who are specifically trained to identify that. From a policing perspective and talking to my colleagues, we're seeing an increase in folks who are not driving while impaired by alcohol but are driving while impai

Health committee  It's a little bit of both, but if you do look at the labels of the drugs prescribed now, it says to avoid operating heavy machinery. I would include a car as heavy machinery. When we talk about education and labelling on any drug that can affect a person's cognitive ability or ab

Health committee  First, when we thought about this as an issue.... We're very adept at tracking all the illicit drugs. We're very good at tracking the criminal element that's involved in that, but quite often we're cut short when all of a sudden the drug of choice in the community becomes a pres

Health committee  First to Cameron's point about using tamper-resistant strategies, we would believe that has to be done proactively at the initial stage, versus reactively once you determine that something has caused harm within the community. We're all about getting at the front end, at the fron

Health committee  Could I add a comment to that?

Health committee  In Nova Scotia we have a very robust prescription monitoring program and double doctoring has virtually disappeared in Nova Scotia. The trouble is, they can then go to P.E.I. and get a scrip. That's why you have to—

Health committee  Good morning. By way of introduction, my name is Mark Mander. I am the chief of police with the Kentville Police Service, and I'm the chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police drug abuse committee. On behalf of CACP president Chief Constable Jim Chu, I would like to