Mr. Speaker, there are approximately 5,000 prescription drugs available on the Canadian market for patients who need them. Those drugs, with one exception, have been proven safe and effective for Canadians, and we are working to improve the standards, to improve the safety of those drugs.
Smoking marijuana has never been proven safe and effective for anything. The reason it is available to Canadians is because a court decided it should be made available. Instead of directing Health Canada to conduct studies to see if marijuana is safe and effective, the court simply ordered it to be made available on the market, so it has never been proven safe and effective for anything. The harms were outlined in the study. As a member of the committee, you heard about the harms. Sorry, my colleague opposite is well aware of the harms.
Over a quarter of our children and teens, aged 11 to 15 years old, already use marijuana. They are risking addiction, memory loss, apathy, psychosis, respiratory problems, diminished mental functions and even death in motor vehicle accidents.