You made a lot of points there, Dr. Fry.
First on the point of advertising, it is a recommendation, but perhaps a bit different from what you might have conceptualized. It's advertising to physicians; it's how in fact the drug companies are advertising and marketing to physicians. Now, practices have changed drastically over the years, but this is an area that we have identified specifically under the prevention rubric:
Conduct an independent review of the evidence and make recommendations as appropriate on the link between promotion (e.g., advertising, marketing to clinicians) and the harms associated with prescription drugs.
To bring it back to your earlier point, this entire work fits into the broader context of how people may use drugs or not. What we do know is that a significant portion of Canadians got here because they happened to have their teeth extracted, or they happened to break an arm, or what have you. That is not to point a finger at any particular profession, other than to say that people have unwittingly become dependent on a drug, at times very powerful, from which an exit strategy is difficult to attain.
Everybody is agreed that this cannot continue and therefore we need to change the dial on it.
If I may underscore, Mr. Chair and members, in First Do No Harm a lot of the heavy lifting around who should be doing what has been articulated in what we hope is a very clear manner in this report. You can use this by going to the individuals listed and saying, “You sat there, you were part of this process. Have you agreed and will you commit to supporting these, and what will you do?” I say so because there have already been those suspicions.
This is about having a true national approach that will have to evolve over time in the context of broader challenges around youth and cannabis and the like. I don't mean to stump here, but the point is that we think this is worthy of the attention of not only the federal government and this committee, but also of others.