Thank you for the question.
The Canadian Nurses Association approaches the question of age from a harm reduction perspective. For all of the things that have been discussed over multiple days, as we've been hearing, we feel that they need to be very carefully balanced.
We do recognize that brain development continues to occur until age 25, according to the research, and that there are harms associated with cannabis use, but as we've heard just now and throughout the preceding days, we recognize that setting an age too high could continue to leave the people in Canada who use cannabis the most at highest risk from the harms of the illicit market. That includes the crime associated with purchasing in an illegal market and the harms associated with an unregulated product when you don't know the potency or the safety of what's in there.
Instead of on the age itself, we really think that the emphasis needs to be on educating all members of the population, especially vulnerable people or, potentially, the highest users, by developing education and involving all stakeholders so that you can have a conversation with youth, it's not a paternalistic approach, and they know of the harms and can make an informed decision.