Health committee  Just listening to the conversations this morning and watching the debate in society around this issue, I think the biggest challenge for people, including members of the committee whose comments this morning reflected concerns for adolescents, for unborn children, and drug-impair

Health committee  Yes, I know Kevin's work. Kevin tends not to conduct original research and is not part of the scientific community that's actively working in this area. He is known to work with policy groups favouring a shift from outright prohibition to a sort of prohibition light. I wouldn't p

Health committee  I haven't seen original scientific work from Kevin. I believe he has published commentaries and articles of that nature, but not work such as that presented today funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or my own work, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Healt

Health committee  That's a really good question. I think it's important for people to understand that there is a middle ground between prohibition and legalization. I alluded to the Health Officers Council of British Columbia, and the Canadian Public Health Association, which believes that the str

Health committee  This has been a huge area of scientific inquiry with respect to looking at other substances, particularly tobacco and alcohol. How they're regulated, how they're supplied, in what potency, the outlet density you allow, and prohibitions on advertisement and promotion all can have

Health committee  Do you want me to take them one at a time?

Health committee  Very quickly, a great deal of study has gone into looking at the relative harms of different psychoactive substances and pharmaceutical drugs. As I made clear during my remarks, there is broad scientific consensus, and I think people would be way outside that consensus if they we

Health committee  Good morning. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak. I have some brief prepared remarks and then I'd be happy to take any questions. By way of introduction, I'm a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia. I hold a Canada research chair in in