Health committee  CCSA was fortunate to visit Colorado and Washington state a couple of years ago to really hear from our colleagues to the south what were some of their experiences and lessons learned, and I know you heard from some of those witnesses yesterday. Just to reiterate, what we heard when we visited Washington and Colorado, and in some of the dialogue we had here today, is to have really strong upfront investment in prevention and public education and to really make sure we have targeted messages for different groups.

Health committee  I think we need to have evidence-based information on that warning. I don't think we want to take a scare-tactic approach, but I think we really need to state what the facts are. We've identified that there's still a lot we don't know about cannabis, but there has been some research, and we can come to some firm conclusions in a few areas.

Health committee  It's a very good question, and it's a question that I get asked a lot. In our focus group research, we heard from the young people some of the reasons why they're using drugs, cannabis in particular. A lot of young people talked about dealing with stress and with mental health issues.

Health committee  We do a great deal of work at the CCSA in collaboration with many partners. Some of those partners involve the federal government, different provincial governments, and municipalities. I can talk about some of our products today. We've collaborated with a partner in Ontario, Parent Action on Drugs, to develop an infographic based on a systematic review we did looking at the effects of cannabis use.

Health committee  I would echo the comments of my colleagues that it really underscores the importance of prevention messaging, public health messaging, for parents, young people, and youth allies, the people who interact with youth, about the effects of cannabis—for better education.

Health committee  Yes, certainly. During my remarks I was talking about how we could draw from our experience with alcohol in terms of standardizing the pricing of the potency of the product. In terms of cannabis, if we could tie in or index the pricing of the THC content, that could help incentivize lower-risk use, so the higher the THC or the potency of the product, the higher the pricing.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Amy Porath-Waller, and I'm the director of research and policy at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, or CCSA. CCSA was created in 1988. We're Canada's only agency with a legislated national mandate to reduce the harms of alcohol and other drugs on Canadian society.