Health committee  We don't do that by regulating and legalizing. When you look at alcohol and tobacco, the usage levels of alcohol and tobacco are far greater than the usage levels of cannabis. We may think we're regulating it by putting laws on it, but as you sort of said very openly, which is true, kids are getting alcohol today as they are getting cigarettes.

Health committee  I think for some of those study participants in that human study that both Dr. Smith and I refer to, that was the case, but there were also people who smoked more than that, who were classified as casual because they were not at the heavy use level.

Health committee  I don't know what the risk is, off the top of my head, but the animal studies that have been done before have certainly shown casual use changes, and this is the first human study, so it's definitely an area that we're looking at. Remember, on casual use, as Mr. Perron said, if you are using cannabis for the first time at 16, and you're a naive user, and you're getting behind the wheel of a car, or you're eating an edible...or vaporizing something, and you're hanging out on a balcony, whether or not that produces a brain change, which comes up in a month or two, really doesn't mean anything if you crash your car or fall off the balcony as a result of that—

Health committee  —which certainly could happen when you are intoxicated.

Health committee  I don't think so at all, because when we've seen a version of regulation like the medical situation in Colorado, or California, or Washington state, many states have had this sort of regulatory framework over medical.... For example, we've seen great diversion to young people.

Health committee  I think so far, the only place to do it recreationally has been Colorado. I think the results have been extremely troubling, with young people using it, with more attention that police have to now spend on public use, on nuisance crimes, as well as on crashes and poison control calls.

Health committee  Having worked for multiple different parties, I certainly have a non-partisan stance here, but we certainly wouldn't want people of influence, whom we would rightfully look up to, talking about this in such a casual way or glorifying its use. We need to discourage use among young people.

Health committee  It's very difficult to get those numbers. I think there are studies that are starting. I wouldn't say that they have concluded about what the actual costs alone of, say, a change in cannabis policy is. It depends on a lot of things. For example, we haven't discussed today, how will cannabis use changes in young people affect alcohol use changes?

Health committee  That's a great question. Really, it goes back to this issue of the divide between public misunderstanding and scientific understanding. When we look at every single medical association in North America that has examined this issue, the Canadian Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the Canadian pediatrics, the American pediatrics, on and on, they would be coming to the same conclusions that Dr.

Health committee  Of course you could.

Health committee  A lot of kids, unfortunately, as you mentioned, have many misunderstandings about this. They think that if you don't smoke it and you just eat it or vaporize it, it will be safer. We know from studies on vaporization of various things that it is very difficult to control the heat level, which would mean that you are heating up....

Health committee  We're looking at what outcome we are concerned with. Obviously if we're looking at major structural changes in the brain, we wouldn't expect to see that with one in four times use, sir. Then when we're looking at driving, if you've only used once in the past year and you're intoxicated that one time and you get behind the wheel of a car, that's clearly going to have a negative outcome.

Health committee  If you look at the country regions, you would need to control for multiple different factors within that society, so the study done in New Zealand is the exact study you're talking about. That is where they were able to control for all of the different things, and basically had identical people, half of whom used, half who didn't, and compared those groups when controlling for other things.

Health committee  Sure. There is certainly evidence of that. There's evidence of head and neck cancers, as well. There's evidence of...reproductive and endocrine systems; there certainly are connections there that need to be further explored. Those have been identified for long over two decades now.

Health committee  You're taking in all the THC at once. A lot of these stores say that you should eat only eat a sixth at one time, wait a day, and then eat another sixth. I don't know if they just taste really good, or what, but people do not eat them a sixth at a time. They eat the whole thing usually at one sitting, as you would any other brownie.