Thank you very much, Chairperson.
Dr. Meuser, thank you for sharing and using yourself as an example of what can happen with a prescription. It's not an easy thing to do.
It's very interesting to hear all the witnesses today because I think we're really beginning to get a sense of how complex this issue is and how the system—if there is a system—is not working very well. That's becoming more and more evident.
Madam Bard, thank you so much for raising the issue of harm reduction and the fact that it does need to be reinstated. It was part of Canada's drug strategy and it was dropped in 2007. I think the most salient point that I picked up from that, and you used Insite as an example but there are many other examples, is that harm reduction is really part of the continuum of treatment. It's not something that's separate. It's a very misunderstood term, unfortunately, that has become very politicized. It would be great if we could strip that away and look at it as part of the continuum of health care.
A couple of questions arise for me—well, many questions. Dr. Simpson, I would ask for your thoughts about this monitoring real-time interoperable system that you spoke about. It sounds like a great thing that should be done. How realistic is that? Are there any models in other countries that we could look at? I know that in B.C. we have a system, but it's mostly based at the pharmacy level. You were speaking about it being linked back to electronic health records, and the physician would be the primary point. I think that's what you were getting at. I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about that.
For the other witnesses, we've heard a lot about OxyContin. That's obviously the most dramatic example of prescription abuse or even misuse in terms of the way it's being prescribed. I'm curious to know if there are other, not necessarily addictive, situations with other drugs where basically prescribing is taking place when it's not needed, where people are taking things for years and years and they actually don't need it anymore, and it just becomes this routine. What kinds of checks and balances are there in the system to prevent that? I think it would be easy for us to be caught up in the drama of oxycodone and it's important, but I'm also concerned about the system overall. We seem to be so over-prescribed, which I guess falls into the misuse category, I'm not sure. I wonder if some of you would respond to that as well.