CCSA was fortunate to visit Colorado and Washington state a couple of years ago to really hear from our colleagues to the south what were some of their experiences and lessons learned, and I know you heard from some of those witnesses yesterday. Just to reiterate, what we heard when we visited Washington and Colorado, and in some of the dialogue we had here today, is to have really strong upfront investment in prevention and public education and to really make sure we have targeted messages for different groups. We're going to need public education for youth, but we're also going to need it for their parents. We're going to need, beyond a mass media approach, that multi-faceted approach that I spoke to during my remarks: evidence-based programs in schools, community interventions, supports for parents. Anyone who's working with youth really needs to understand what the effects of cannabis are and how to have that discussion with young people, because it's not easy. I really commend Drug Free Kids Canada for its tool to help parents unpack that and really know how to start that conversation.
The other thing I would emphasize is really having resources for the implementation of the legislation. That's something we heard from a lot of the stakeholders when we went down to Washington and Colorado, making sure there's enough training for law enforcement, making sure there are resources put aside for prevention, but also for treatment, and we talked a bit about that as well, making sure we have that investment.
The other piece is research. As a researcher who's been studying cannabis for 16 years, I know there's a great deal we know, but there's so much we don't know. My organization led a two-day meeting last fall, where we pulled together 50 of the North American experts on cannabis to really start to map out some of the priority areas where we need further research. We're working collaboratively with CIHR and our partners at Health Canada and Public Safety to really start to move forward with that agenda. I'm actually going to a meeting next week in Montreal with CIHR.
Those are the points I would emphasize: we need investment for research, ongoing monitoring and evaluation, and prevention and public education.
Thank you.