Thank you.
Mr. MacPherson, I just want to come back to a word you used. You used the word “conundrum”, and I want to explore that a little bit with you. You're quoted as saying:
Drugs that are currently illegal, we should make them legal. Then we can focus on problematic substance use and issues like dependency and addiction. The so-called war on drugs is this sort of masterful distraction that we will get it right someday in the future if we just try a little harder. That's not going to happen. If we were to just legalize these substances and put our resources to helping people who develop problems with them, we'd waste less money and have much better outcomes.
You're also quoted as saying:
The irony of our drug control strategies is that they don't control drugs. They actually create a free market for these substances and the free market is managed by organized criminal gangs with a global reach.
I very much agree with you in those quotes.
Recently, Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief medical officer of Canada, has vocalized what many stakeholders across the country are saying, which is that we have a poison, toxic street supply in this country, and it's killing people. I fail to see what the conundrum is.
I see a straight line to a logical answer, which is that we need to address it head-on by making sure that people who are using drugs aren't killed by toxic poison in the streets. That means we have to make sure that they have access to a safe, regulated supply of known quantity and known dosage, preferably I would say, through a highly regulated medical system.
Do you agree with that, or do you think we should continue to leave drug supply to organized crime on the streets?