Thank you very much for the question. I want to pick up on a couple of points.
The point about education is extremely important. The latest numbers I've seen for the money that would be budgeted towards education for marijuana use for youth was $9.6 million, whereas the budget for the federal tobacco strategy, for example, is $38 million. I think we've gotten to a point in Canada that there's no adult who smokes who thinks it's good for them. We've done a good job of helping people understand the health risks, and when they make the decision, they're making an informed adult choice to take on the risk.
We're not anywhere near that point with marijuana. There's still a fairly large cohort of people who think not only that it is not harmful to them but that it may actually be good for them. We need more money, not less, in terms of that education piece.
With respect to the age, I hear the argument a lot that we should set the age at 19 because that's what it is for alcohol. To me, that's very lazy thinking. It says we're just going to go along with the status quo and are not going to evaluate this based on its own merits. If you look at the United States, where they have an age of majority for alcohol of 21, who's to say that it's not better, for a substance such as alcohol? In fact, there are many groups, mental health groups and others, who are saying it may be time to re-evaluate the age at which alcohol can be purchased.
I would encourage people to look at this based on what the evidence shows for this particular product and not on the historical decisions that were made for alcohol. As you say, those are different, based on the provinces, in any case. We really hope that people will look at this on its own merits.