Mr. Speaker, one of the first things I did as Minister of Health to deal with the numerous parents I ran into who told me about the marijuana addiction their kids were suffering from and who did not have anywhere to go for information was get a group together of the top addiction experts and specialists across Canada. We held a round table. I asked them, “What is the number one thing we can do to support you, as a government?”. They said, “Please, please, have a national ad campaign for marijuana smoking cessation”, and I said, “I will do that”. That is exactly what we have done to raise awareness for parents and for young people.
They have repeatedly told me that in our society, in the last 10 years, across the country, governments have failed to make the proper evidence available to parents and to young people. We said that we are going to turn that around, and we are going to make sure young people know. We are going to work hard to curb marijuana smoking for youth, because it is very harmful to their health.
We are succeeding. We are down by 30%. We are seeing that message get to kids. We are going to continue to work hard to make sure that the message continues to reach not only young kids but their parents so that they know that the marijuana that it is out there now is 300% stronger than what they might have used when they were young. It has lasting health effects, as serious as schizophrenia.
We are seeing more and more young people check into rehab addicted to marijuana, and this has to stop.