This ill-informed minister says I do not know that. The fact is that I do know that. The fact is that anybody with that many joints is not a recreational user. Anybody who knows the industry itself would be smart enough to understand that, and anybody who smokes marijuana would tell us that as well.
It is interesting for all the folks listening to know that I am getting badgered by a minister of the crown, but what really gets me is the amount this individual does not know and does not understand and yet he would stand in here and support a bill that is really a very poorly performing bill and will not resolve the problem anyway.
The THC component of marijuana is more or less the addictive component and gives you the buzz, the high or the low or whatever one is going to get from it. Over the years it has increased from about 3% or 4% to around 15% or 16% now. In fact, the first recorded death by smoking marijuana was two weeks ago in England. The death was certified as directly attributable to marijuana smoke. The marijuana he was smoking was from Africa. The potency and the types of marijuana weed are increasing by leaps and bounds today. As more and different strains are developed, we are finding that there is basically no control. There are no parameters on the potency of the THC itself.
So today we are dealing today with a bill that considers, for a person with 40 joints, that the THC component of those 40 joints is approximately 8% or 10%. That will not necessarily be the case tomorrow or the next day, or five months or five years from now. The government is making a presumption based on something that is incorrect and no effort whatsoever has been made to deal with that aspect.
I want to say this: This country needs a national drug strategy. I have been around this country more than enough times dealing with addicted individuals. I have been in Europe, the United States, Mexico and throughout Canada, so I do happen to know what I am talking about on this issue and I initiated for Parliament itself the special committee studying the illegal use of drugs.
What is really required is a way to get our young people and elderly people off drugs. I find it reprehensible, actually, that the government would consider funding a shooting-up site in Vancouver when it will not put money into rehabilitation and detox facilities throughout this land. I find that reprehensible.
In fact, in my community alone, one facility has recently shut down. We had a rehabilitation facility for young, teenaged addicted girls. I went to the previous minister of health and said that we needed some money to keep it open. We had parents lined up trying to get their kids into that place. The government beat around the bush for four or five months and nothing happened. Nothing happened and these kids are out on the street. It is disgusting. Then I find out that the government is funding, in part, a shooting-up site.
Consider this. People who have children on drugs--and I know people who do--go to the government and ask for help for their child. Do we want a government that says yes, it will send people's children to a shoot-up site where they can shoot up in a relatively clean facility, or do we want a government that will take our children and put them in detox and rehabilitation? There is no choice for parents. I know what they would choose.
The government has to act as a judicious parent on these issues. It has to have a national drug strategy that looks at abstinence, not permission to use. It is sad that this has come to the House. The decriminalization of marijuana is a very minor part of a drug strategy, so minor it does not even rate. I am sad to see that today this is all the government can come up with.