First, to the witnesses, thank you for coming and also for waiting while we were dealing with committee business.
I think you all made excellent presentations. I think we've heard pretty well all of the witnesses so far—maybe everybody—say that we need to have regulations.
I would certainly agree with you, Mr. Hammond, that the current situation is so confusing. I've talked to people who use e-cigarettes. Their aim is to do something that's less harmful, but they actually have no idea what they're doing. Just as you pointed out, they don't know if they're using a product that actually has nicotine in it or not. It's not clear. So even when people are trying to do something for their own health, they're not sure if they are doing it. It's a pretty bad situation out there.
I think the difficulty is that on the one hand, people are saying, yes, regulate. On the other hand, a lot of witnesses are saying that we need more study; we need to look at this and this. So how do we proceed? Is there a way to proceed with some regulation, noting that further study is required? That's just one thing to think about, if any of you want to respond to that.
The second thing is with regard to nicotine. Dr. Fry asked a very good question a couple of meetings ago about nicotine and how harmful it is. We were told that basically low levels of nicotine, I think up to 18 milligrams, are no more harmful than caffeine.
Mr. Laliberté, you said that even small doses of nicotine are harmful. I don't know what you mean by “small”, but it seems to me there is quite a big question around the whole use of nicotine. There are different opinions out there, so if somebody has any better evidence as to what levels of nicotine are....
First, is there a threshold? And second, is it possible to proceed with regulation while at the same time doing more study? In my opinion, those are not mutually exclusive. We need to do something. I don't think we can just agree to the status quo, because it's pretty bad.
I'd like to hear any responses to that.