There is in fact a problem with dealing to clients who are minors, but there are buyers, as I pointed out earlier. When this type of measure is considered to be successful, it's because the success is based on the number of arrests. However, if you arrest 15 individuals and then the next day there are 15 more to replace them, then that changes nothing in the market. That is not how the success of these measures should be calculated, that is in terms of arrests: you must go into the field and check whether or not these measures have led to a decrease in the amount of drugs and the number of traffickers. That is my first point.
My second point is that all the studies on trafficking-related arrests, whether they were done here or elsewhere, clearly show that the people most affected by this type of legislation are small dealers, not big dealers. The big dealers have the means to protect themselves from the police. In the rare cases where they are arrested, they have the means to hire lawyers and to prolong the procedures. It's the small dealers who are selling near the schools, not the gentlemen in ties, of course. They have their underlings do the work, and those are the ones who get arrested. Then others replace them. It's the people who are arrested who have families.
Furthermore, the Health Canada study on drug injections in prison show that people who weren't injecting before started doing so in prison. The conditions in these places are such that some needles cost a certain amount because they've been used 30 times, others may cost a different amount because they're broken and others may be worth yet another amount because they are in fact sharpened pencils. Several of the seropositive individuals go back into the community when they come out of prison. Therefore, in terms of public health, this is a needless cost given what it is we want to achieve. Furthermore, it entails even more costs not only for the families of these individuals but also for the population.