Health committee  Yes, I think we've done a very effective job in reducing tobacco through honest education without having to arrest youth or give them a criminal record.

Health committee  Absolutely. I think at a time when most Canadian youth have access to it under our current system after 70 years of prohibition, it's hardly exemplary to continue doing the same thing.

Health committee  Sure. I have two quick comments. First, I studied the cannabis substitution effect. The first study on this that I'm aware of was by a researcher named Karen Model, who looked at U.S. states that had decriminalized cannabis in the 1970s. She found a reduction in ER visits and i

Health committee  I would say that this would be news to me. I'd be curious to find out if that were an accurate description of what's going on here in Canada.

Health committee  You want just my general comments?

Health committee  To be honest, I think it would be a step in the right direction. I think it would be a small step, but it would be a step in the right direction. I would have concerns, because of evidence that comes from Australia, of a net-widening effect. That would be my concern as a social

Health committee  Unfortunately, Health Canada has never justified its decision to only allow us to provide patients with raw cannabis. There was never a good reason put forward. I think this is the start of our program. I don't think this is the end point of the medical marijuana program. I stro

Health committee  I was a city councillor in Victoria from 2008-2011, and I can tell you from the latest numbers I've had—I haven't looked at these in a while—that in 2008 we had about 300 cannabis arrests in the city of Victoria, two-thirds of which were for under an ounce of cannabis. In other w

Health committee  I certainly don't have that statistic.

Health committee  No, absolutely not.

Health committee  An evidence-based public health approach to regulating cannabis—which we're seeing now in Washington state and Colorado—allows adults to use cannabis for recreational purposes, regulates it by age, and regulates the amount that's allowed to be used. This would probably be the bes

Health committee  There are many effective alternative methods of ingestion for cannabis and they're growing in popularity in the medical cannabis population. We see edibles. You can bake it into oils or butter and use it as a baking compound; you can make a tincture out of it so it can be used su

Health committee  Sure, I can discuss this a little bit. The primary constituents of the endocannabinoid system, that we know of—CB1 and CB2—are found either in the immune system or in the brain and otherwise...so they course through our body. Now, different cannabinoids bind in the endocannabinoi

Health committee  I think I made it clear, or certainly the research that I have suggests, that one in ten regular cannabis users develops a level of dependence to it, but the dependence is short-lived. It's usually self-treated. It lasts three days to a few weeks—

Health committee  That's certainly what the evidence that I'm aware of suggests.