Chair, the purpose of this amendment is to bring the provisions of my private member's bill, Bill C-224, to bear on this legislation. As you remember, Bill C-224, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, which received royal assent in May and passed all stages in both Houses—I believe, unanimously—amended the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to exempt from charges for simple possession, certain breaches of conditions, and so forth, people who seek emergency medical or law enforcement assistance for themselves or another person in the event of an overdose.
This is working, and it is an effective tool to help stem the tide of death that pertains to overdoses in this country. However, should this bill pass and receive royal assent, cannabis would be removed from the scope of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and the provisions of that act would no longer apply to cannabis, which means that those exemptions would no longer apply to cannabis.
What this amendment would do is it would add into this section those self same exclusions that were previously introduced and passed in the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.
We have also suggested a minor change. The word “overdose” is sometimes confusing to people. They don't know necessarily whether a particular medical situation is in fact an overdose, and so they are reluctant to make the call. This would change the language to “medical emergency” as opposed to using the word “overdose”.
I think this avoids for us a situation where someone who might be in possession of marijuana but in a circumstance where someone has been called in relation to, say, an opioid overdose is subject to possession charges that would take from them the incentive to call for help, which is really what we want to do. We want to encourage people to call for help when help is needed.
I hope for support from the committee for this amendment.