I'll just add to that. It's well established—the stats are well known—that Canada's youth are among the most prevalent users of cannabis around the world. By raising the age, we're potentially still keeping our cannabis use a very “hidden in the shadows” health behaviour. We need to have youth being able to go to health professionals and to talk about their use, to talk about the problems associated with it, and to receive the appropriate education and the referrals to harm reduction programs in order to address problematic use.
We also need to be able to open the dialogue with our youth about the potential harms, many that they may not be aware of. We've seen research that suggests many youth begin to use cannabis in social settings. They see it as almost a social lubricant. They don't associate harms with it. They may not be aware of what the long-term harms are that are related to career and educational attainment, as well as the cognitive development issues and the mental health issues that have been raised by other panellists today.
We need to make sure that we're opening that dialogue and being respectful of youth's ability to make decisions around their health care behaviour.