Health committee  Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I'm pleased to appear before you today for Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Canada, and as a member of the National Advisory Council on Prescription Drug Misuse. It's being co-ordinated through the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

Health committee  First of all, let me mention one of the things we don't do at our company. We will never bash another treatment. We won't say that methadone is any better or worse, or that Suboxone is. The reality is that if you sell treatment, then Suboxone, methadone, psychosocial support, eve

Health committee  B.C. is a funny place in many good ways. They're so progressive in a lot of ways in terms of making sure that treatment is available. In B.C. you have a situation where Suboxone can be prescribed, providing the doctor has entered into what's called a collaborative prescribing agr

Health committee  I can't go into conversations about pipeline, but I can say there is research ongoing to broaden opiate dependence treatment, but also in a litany of other treatment areas as well. We will only ever be an addiction treatment company. We will not go into other areas, because our f

Health committee  No. To be honest, in this respect, I think that Health Canada should follow the lead of experts across the country, and the drug should be tamper-resistant 100%. There is no reason to have non-tamper-proof generic forms of oxycodone or fentanyl or anything. The technologies exist

Health committee  This is why we will never say that our treatment is the best treatment, or that methadone is the best treatment. The reality is, as with cancer treatment or any other treatment, there is a variety of different ones that will work for different patient profiles. Treatment is what

Health committee  Anecdotally, yes, I would say that the folks in B.C. are rightfully quite pleased with the triplicate program. I hear a lot of good things about it, and so yes, in that sense I think anecdotally...and I'm thinking about 30 doctors who I've heard from in that province, they have b

Health committee  I think anything that you can do to cut down on the diversion aspect, the abuse aspect in any way, shape, or form, best practices should be explored and if necessary made national, yes.

Health committee  When you look at section 56 and the requirement to have an exemption to prescribe methadone—that has to come through Health Canada, but the colleges handle it—this is something where I think the federal government could look at it and say, “What's going on with the addiction trea

Health committee  One of the things we do lack is an accountability mechanism for some of the regulators for the companies. I have to say I'm pleased with, for example, Bill C-17, but in that context there's a lot of stuff that could be done to tighten it up, based on the recommendations here, tha

Health committee  I was just going to say, Dr. Lunney, that in terms of a monitoring system, I would encourage committee members to look at the RADARS system in the United States. It's quite fantastic. Is it the best there is? That I can't say, but I do know it's certainly one model we could loo

Health committee  It's based in Colorado.

Health committee  You can go skiing in Colorado, Mr. Chair.

Health committee  I would submit that “harm reduction” is a very charged term; however, I would submit that any form of treatment is necessarily harm reduction. Whether you're taking methadone or Suboxone, or psychosocial support, or whatever it might be, I would suggest that yes, it does need to

Health committee  I don't have a background in medicine.