Mr. Speaker, I think my friend missed the point I was trying to make. My point is very simple. The present drug strategy is not working. We should think back to the time of prohibition in the United States. What we have is a great boost in organized crime by making trafficking in drugs a profitable enterprise for organized crime.
The chiefs of police are in favour of decriminalization. The least thing I am doing is advocating the use of marijuana. What I am saying is the strategy we have followed has not worked and there are better strategies to deal with it. The tremendous amount of resources that have been spent on a failed drug strategy could be much better used through education to cut down on the use of drugs in this country.
It is a social problem and the criminal solutions have not worked. All they have done is fed the coffers of organized crime. It is time to get our heads around it. There are many victims in Canada who are victims of crimes driven by drugs. What drives those crimes is that too many people have become addicted because it has been promoted by organized crime. That is what we have to put a stop to.