Mr. Speaker, I want to provide a little history lesson for the previous speaker.
I am old enough that I had never heard of marijuana when I started practising law in 1966. I heard of it when I became a crown prosecutor. At the time, the marijuana grown here was not very strong at all. It did not have any THC, the active ingredient.
I saw the marijuana phenomenon begin around 1966 and continually increase in the 1970s. All the marijuana consumed in Canada came from elsewhere.
And what was the minimum sentence for importing marijuana? Seven years in prison. I saw people sent up for seven years. The time came when that just did not make any sense and they stopped doing it. But I saw people sent up.
Do the members not think that seven years was enough to be dissuasive? And if seven years was not enough, does this not prove that prison is not dissuasive. People do not even know what they are risking.