Thank you very much.
I want to pick up on the theme we've been discussing here. You mentioned of course that Health Canada has been monitoring the scientific evidence, we've been evaluating the literature, but by Ms. Geller's admission the rapidly expanding usage is way ahead of the scientific evidence. We look at some of the facts that have come forward here about the impact on children of the ones that you intercepted and analyzed: many of them contain nicotine even though they didn't say they did on the labels. The WHO has identified a potential risk of fetal and adolescent nicotine exposure of long-term consequences for brain development. Those are things that cause me a very significant measure of concern. When we look at what you said about the study from Ontario, that 15% of students 9 to 12 had tried e-cigarettes, and a Cancer Society study in Quebec found that 34% of elementary and secondary students had used e-cigarettes, it seems to me this is rapidly becoming a major concern about the impact on children. A new generation of smokers is being created by exposure to nicotine. It seems to me there's a high-risk train that's roaring down the track here. By the time the scientific literature catches up maybe 10 years from now it's going to be a really immense public health concern with tobacco use, which has been declining, taking on a whole new manifestation here.
Maybe I'd follow up and just carry it to the next step and say that the other thing is of course that cannabis is being used in these things. I just did a little check online on all of the use of loading. Online you can see how to load your own e-cigarettes with cannabis oils and how to prepare it in about a couple of hours of creative work with the dried product. The impact of that on a new generation of young people who can smoke in front of their teachers, or in front of their parents, and because there's no smell actually think they're getting away with something....
We just did a study on the harmful effects of marijuana. It seems to me that there's a real need to get ahead of this somehow. The scientific literature may catch up, but I think we have enough evidence of the harm of nicotine to maybe put some restrictions on these products much more rapidly and restrict their use to those who might benefit in cessation programs through some of the measures identified by the American Heart Association, which had some five policy recommendations that could be employed fairly rapidly.