We don't do that by regulating and legalizing. When you look at alcohol and tobacco, the usage levels of alcohol and tobacco are far greater than the usage levels of cannabis. We may think we're regulating it by putting laws on it, but as you sort of said very openly, which is true, kids are getting alcohol today as they are getting cigarettes.
The reason the reduction in cigarettes has been found—which is a great success as Mr. Perron pointed out—is not because the substance is legal; it's because we've had a massive education and de-normalization and stigmatization campaign on smoking. I mean it's hard to find people who smoke who even agree with the fact that they're smoking, who even like the fact that they're smoking. It's been a huge change in our society.
Right now we have the opposite for cannabis. We have all this information about how it must be helpful and that it's not that bad. With regard to medical use, let's not forget, Madam Fry, that most of our illegal drugs also have medicinal properties. Cocaine has medicinal properties. In fact in the U.S., it's used in limited settings for anesthetics and certain surgeries. Clearly opiates have medicinal properties. The number one pain reliever that we know of is morphine, which comes from opium.
Cannabis, as you said and I said earlier, has medicinal properties. The question is how we make sure that we are separating the recreational use, which is what we're mostly talking about today, and the medicinal use, which can delivered in a non-smoked way. As I commended Canada for having Sativex available, I'm not sure why there needs to be a whole thing for smoked cannabis for “medical purposes” if you have the liquid extract that actually delivers the positive benefits without the negative aspects. I'll stop there.