Veterans Affairs committee  —ballooned.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, like other systems, we're taught about it.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, antidepressants are the gold standard treatment for PTSD. We have treatments that have been well tested and well researched and we know work.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Again, we have evidence on it. We have no evidence on marijuana except we know that it can have a lot of deleterious effects, like causing psychosis.

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you mean in antidepressants?

Veterans Affairs committee  Again, this is the kind of research that certainly should be done. I don't know that it will be us, or maybe it will be us in partnership with some of the institutes now that are doing very good research, like McMaster, like the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Veterans Affairs committee  —of benefits.

Veterans Affairs committee  We've certainly looked at research that has come out of places like Colorado where they've had this experience. It's interesting because I remember a couple of days ago on CBC radio they were talking about research that's been done there. Once these edible forms are introduced, which look like candy, they've had problems with children overdosing on them.

Veterans Affairs committee  By the way, I have some research papers that I can leave.

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me answer that. As Dr. Courchesne said, because of the war on drugs, principally in the U.S., for a very long time it was very hard to get funding to do research. However, there is research available. As she also said, most of it shows the harms associated with cannabis use.

Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly that's one of the big questions. It's something we've been discussing and trying to look at. Right now we're putting together some proposals with our research division to look at our own population that is already using cannabis or those who will start using cannabis to perhaps do some kind of a case comparison, at least of matched veterans who are not using cannabis, so that we can look over time and see how these people are actually doing.

Veterans Affairs committee  Right now—

Veterans Affairs committee  The numbers are so small, that's why.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Again, part of the reason we are doing a joint suicide strategy is that we want to make sure that we put special emphasis on that time. Again, with some of the research that's being done in Veterans Affairs Canada, we're really looking at these issues like identity and what happens to a person's identity, especially people who joined the military when they were very young and this is not just the only employment they've ever known, but that they've grown up in the military and this is the family they've known, because it really is.

Veterans Affairs committee  On approximately how many veterans have...?