Veterans Affairs committee  It's orally safe as well, with the same risks.

Veterans Affairs committee  As one of the few countries where we do cover cannabis for veterans, we should be proud of that compassionate approach. I would hope that we would refrain from trying to roll it back. I think there's an important relationship between physicians and their patients. The VAC should

Veterans Affairs committee  In the 1980s the DEA in the U.S. went to court to have the scheduling changed. The judge was overruled ultimately, but he characterized cannabis as being the safest pharmaceutically active substance known. In terms of toxicity, the toxicity is nil. There is a risk of acute disc

Veterans Affairs committee  There isn't evidence linking cannabis to suicide or self-harm. There have been some reviews of it, and the conclusions of the reviews are that there is no way to make that causal association. People who suffer with PTSD and anxiety are at high risk of self-harm and suicide, and t

Veterans Affairs committee  I think we're right to be somewhat concerned with the influence of money on the research process. That goes across the board; it's not special for cannabis. A lot of what we know about medicine today has been funded by pharmaceutical companies, and people have noticed the same pr

Veterans Affairs committee  If we were to look one area where we need more research, it's in comparing different strains of cannabis. A lot of what we know comes from talking to people who are using cannabis rather than administering the cannabis ourselves, so it's very hard for us to characterize what kind

Veterans Affairs committee  If you don't mind, I think I could respond. I was actually just reviewing a paper that we're submitting in a week that was the first survey of medical students on their training in medical cannabis. Right now in the Canadian medical school curricula that we surveyed—hopefully t

Veterans Affairs committee  That is in the entire medical training, yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  What we found in that study is that it coincides with what we found— I think Dr. Bonn-Miller has to go.

Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly, as an academic researcher, I've seen notices from CIHR and other funding bodies. I think there is an increased interest from the tri-council agencies in funding cannabis research. I'm always going to say that we need more, and I think we need broader research, but I th

Veterans Affairs committee  You know, when it comes to strands and dosages, we're still quite a way off. The ultimate answer is going to be a lot of variability. As much as we'd like it to conform to sort of a single molecule medicine, where we can say we're going to give you this pill and that's the dose,

Veterans Affairs committee  In our trial, we're looking at about two grams of herbal cannabis a day. We do find that it's not uncommon for people to return that. We ask them to return whatever they don't use in a given day and sometimes they will bring some back. It's not like everyone is using all of their

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a very hard thing to tease apart in a prohibition framework. Some people talk about the gateway hypothesis where people start with cannabis and then they develop other problems. That's been largely debunked. I think there is certainly a potential for cannabis to serve as a

Veterans Affairs committee  I think there is a possibility, if it's controlling the symptoms and if it's providing some of the effects that someone would want from alcohol. We're currently studying that in our lab. With young adults anyway we've found they report that cannabis reduces their cravings for al

Veterans Affairs committee  Go ahead.