Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here this morning.
I have a question that I keep repeating at almost every meeting.
Dr. Kahan, in your presentation you mentioned how in the 1990s there was a change—an explosion in prescribing OxyContin and the aggressive marketing, etc. Other witnesses also brought this up earlier, that in the 1980s and later, doctors started prescribing opioids for non-cancer treatments and the practice eventually spread to the degree that we have a crisis here.
I'm trying to understand one thing. When they put OxyContin on the market in 1995, it wasn't really a new invention. We've known about opioids for over 200 years. If I have the dates correct, morphine came onto the market in 1804 and was distributed in 1817. Merck sold it commercially in 1827.
So we have 200 years of a history of opioids, and we know very well—and I guess medical practitioners know very well—that they are highly addictive. So how is it possible that an aggressive advertising campaign by a pharmaceutical company did not raise any red flags with medical professionals, with the regulating body, or with anyone else?
I'm trying to understand, so I will give you the floor.