Mr. Chair, the bottom line is that when we talk about decriminalization and we talk about all those other best practices that are happening around the world like in Portugal and in other places, no one has talked about Switzerland or about Scandinavia where HAT is going on, the heroin-assisted treatment in which people are being given substitution therapy. The answer lies in finding a way to deal with substitution therapy.
British Columbia did the SALOME trials and the NAOMI trials, which told us that substitution therapy worked for many people. Because methadone is not working and suboxone is not working, we need to find other ways. We found that dihydromorphone and dihydromorphine were substitution therapies that could work and did work. However, we only have one site available to get those drugs, because they are difficult to get internationally. Therefore, we have to look at other ways to get a clean, clear, legal supply of drugs that can be there, and not just for addicts. We are not just talking about traditional addicts; we are talking about all these young people who are using drugs. By doing that, they can know that we are taking it out of the hands of organized crime.
Switzerland has some very interesting legislation and best practices that have succeeded in taking it out of the hands of organized crime, which is the bottom line, and getting a clean, safe supply of substitution therapy to people. Scandinavia is doing this. Portugal has another model, but it is not the answer. There are a lot of holes in the Portuguese model.
All I am saying is whether they want to talk about decriminalization, about legalization or about any of the solutions, the idea is to stop the criminal element from putting these drugs out on the street and getting clean drugs. However we do it, we need to talk about that. We need to talk about a politically feasible way of getting Canadians to understand that. We cannot just go ahead and do something like this willy-nilly. Therefore, we need to discuss these issues.