Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank our witnesses, Carol and Peter, for being with us today. It's a very important subject that obviously we're all concerned about.
I just want to go back to the beginning of your presentation, Carol, where you said something about first nation communities seeking to embrace wellness. I think there is a lot of this concept of wellness in traditional native herbal remedies and traditional knowledge of stuff out of the woods that was around a ways back that could bear some further investigation today. I know we have it where I am on the west coast. There is a lot of interest in that, and some of the elders are quite well versed in some of the traditional remedies.
Anyway, I wanted to follow up with that. I would suggest it is probably something we could all look into, remedies that culturally would fit better in a first nations setting than some of the other strategies that have been developed for other communities.
The national chief is from the area that I represent, or I'm from his traditional territory, depending on how you want to look at this. His family is from Ahousaht on the west coast. Their Nuu-chah-nulth first nation language has a word that we sometimes think about. It's called hishuk ish tsawalk. If you are familiar with the Nuu-chah-nulth language, it simply means everything is one; we are a part of nature and nature is a part of us. So looking at a more holistic approach and a natural approach, there may be some remedies here that would be helpful. I think there are perhaps some things that could bear some investigation.
We had some discussion earlier about programs that are in place, strategies that have been developed that were discussed by some of my colleagues. But looking at the national anti-drug strategy in a general sense, at the grassroots level we look for support in community groups, youth groups, and others in providing kids with information about the dangers of drugs. Building on this approach to include prescription drugs could likely be done very efficiently. I'm wondering if you could speak to the level of coordination with community groups working to keep youth off drugs and how prescription drugs relate to other drugs.