Justice committee  That's only part of the picture. I'm also not in favour of treating the drug problem as a criminal law problem of morality. It's appropriate to treat drunk driving, homicide, assault, sexual assault, or any number of offences as criminal offences deserving of prohibition and dese

Justice committee  You don't turn to doctors to solve this problem; you turn to the best available evidence. You can read the best available evidence as much as I can, and you can determine what the relative odds are. If we do turn to doctors, if we do turn to the Canadian Medical Association, they

Justice committee  It is in some circumstances, and I agree with the minister that where it is, the law should respond accordingly. If adults are growing marijuana for their own use or using small amounts of marijuana, that ought not to be subject to criminal penalty.

Justice committee  Yes. As I've said earlier, globally we're not in a position to have a regulation of cannabis. It's just not a realistic possibility. I wouldn't suggest to any justice minister that legalization or any form of even regulation in the same way that we regulate alcohol be considered

Justice committee  I think so. I mean, you're not off base; I understand that this is a suggestion people often make. But I don't think it's very productive. I think it's a very expensive suggestion, and we could deal with the problem in other ways. If you're a heroin addict and you're stealing...

Health committee  Thanks very much. It's an honour and a privilege to be here this morning to address the committee. I've provided the committee with a brief and I'd like to make a few additional comments and focus as well on a few points within that brief. First, I have to say that I applaud th

Health committee  Yes, 1923.

Health committee  I think the experience in Colorado has effectively demonstrated that the dose can be titrated. Certainly when people think of edibles in the Canadian or North American context more broadly, they think of people eating cannabis and being subjected to highly unpredictable and somet

Health committee  You have a system in place of licensed producers for medical use. As you know, the number of users in the medical system has grown dramatically, from about 7,000 to more than 130,000. That same system could be put in place for recreational users. The products that recreational us

Health committee  Regarding a lot of the organized crime groups that people are most concerned about, I think of organized crime as the type of crime that has acts of force or violence, threats, or corruption attached. Most of the people involved in cannabis production don't fall into that categor

Health committee  The prices that are charged by Vancouver dispensaries are not dramatically different from the prices that are charged by the licensed producers. One could say that much of what comes out of the dispensaries is a product of organized crime, because by definition the licensed produ

Health committee  I think of the quiet enjoyment of premises. I'm thinking of risk of fire if people want to install metal halide lights. That's an issue that would have to be closely regulated. Most people wouldn't want to live in multi-family dwellings that have a lot of cannabis smell going bac

Health committee  I think alcohol is a very good analogy here. We know that most young people can get access to alcohol. It's said that it's easier to get access to cannabis today than it is to get access to alcohol, so I asked my first-year students last week in class. I was curious. I would have

Health committee  Yes. I don't think we're going to solve this problem through aggressive law enforcement. I think we're going to solve it much the same way we solved the tobacco problem, through aggressive public health education, through aggressive regulation of non-smokers' rights. To the exten

Health committee  I think if edibles are not added to schedule 4, obviously you're going to risk a continuation of the illicit market. I think that's particularly regrettable because the people who want to consume edibles are often people who fall within the medical realm rather than recreational