Veterans Affairs committee  Honourable members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, good afternoon and thank you for inviting me. It's a privilege to be invited to sit before you to share my knowledge and opinions about medical cannabis and the well-being of our veterans. I'd lik

Veterans Affairs committee  Cannabis can be used as a medicine, and it can be used for the purpose of leaving our current state of consciousness—our present mindset, if you like. It can be used as a euphoriant, to make people feel happier. So it clearly can be used for people to relax in a social setting. T

Veterans Affairs committee  Are you addressing me on that one?

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. Cannabis is a botanical. It's not a single molecule, which is what we're used to. When we talk about medicine, in the context that I think you're talking about, in the medical and pharmaceutical milieu—now, for almost 100 years or thereabouts—medicine is often thought of a

Veterans Affairs committee  I couldn't be more disturbed by this government's decision to burden medical patients with this additional tax. Skirting that particular item, in my talk I pointed out that the people most in need and the people who most benefit from medical cannabis are often those who are suffe

Veterans Affairs committee  If the measuring stick is going to be the same for a botanical as for a single-molecule pharmaceutical drug, we have problems. That's one of the reasons for the delay in getting the evidence we need. There are two reasons why we do those studies. One is to convince Health Canad

Veterans Affairs committee  We want to know its safety. We want to know it's not going to kill people or give them cancer. With medical cannabis, we need to be more patient, because it's very difficult to assess it in the same way. My answer to you is that there is ample preclinical science to make us bel

Veterans Affairs committee  Just so I'm clear about that question, do you mean conventional prescription medication that failed to work well?

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I'd be surprised if the room you're sitting in wasn't filled with people who could give me an example of being given a drug, having a side effect from it and not being able to take it. Or maybe it was partially efficacious. That runs across the full gamut of medications we h

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll start with the last one first. Medical education for medical students, nursing students and anyone in the health professions is clearly important. Looking over—

Veterans Affairs committee  There are many parts to your question. All of our colleges here in Canada require doctors to keep up. Those requirements are dictated by each province or territory, as you know. Each of the colleges dictates for the specialists and for the family doctors, the non-specialists, wh

Veterans Affairs committee  [Technical difficulty—Editor] consistent province to province or territory about anything to do with health care. Each province tweaks it and makes it just a little bit their own. It applies to cannabis as well.

Veterans Affairs committee  The education is hugely important, as a previous speaker suggested. What happens for anybody in this industry, the medical industry itself, is “see one, do one, teach one”. I was the founding member of Canadian Cannabis Clinics. The next doctor to come along who wanted to work wi

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think it's a case of choosing to endorse medical cannabis for veterans or not recommending it at all because all we have is anecdotal evidence. There are massive amounts of anecdotal stories out there, but that's not what your committee needs to look at. You need to look

Veterans Affairs committee  Perhaps you will allow me to add just one more thing.