Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that he was “surprised” to learn that companies licensed to sell cocaine to pharmacists or hospitals seemed to suggest Canada would soon permit legal sales of hard drugs to the public. Earlier this week, several companies announced that Canada’s federal health agency had allowed them to produce and sell cocaine. This announcement came a month after British Columbia launched an experimental de‑criminalization process aimed at addressing an opioid‑overdose crisis that has killed thousands. The province decriminalized possession—but not sale—of small amounts of cocaine and other hard drugs under a three‑year pilot project, intending to remove the stigma that prevents people from seeking help. Advocates have also been pushing for safer drug supplies to reduce the risk of toxic poisoning from illicit street drugs.
Trudeau clarified that the companies do not have “permission to sell it commercially or provide it on an open market,” and that the misunderstanding would be corrected. “There are limited and very restricted permissions for certain pharmaceutical companies to use that substance for research purposes and for very specific narrowly prescribed medical purposes,” he explained. He made these comments after British Columbia Premier David Eby expressed shock at the claims made by Sunshine Earth Labs and Adastra Labs. “I was as surprised as the premier of British Columbia was to see that a company was talking about selling cocaine on the open market or commercializing it,” Trudeau told reporters.
On Thursday, Eby said allowing commercial sales of hard drugs, including cocaine, “is not part of our provincial plan.” Sunshine Earth Labs had stated it received permission from Health Canada to “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute coca leaf and cocaine,” as well as morphine, MDMA (ecstasy) and heroin. Adastra Labs said its license also allowed it to produce and sell psilocybin and psilocin—hallucinogens commonly known as magic mushrooms, which produce effects similar to LSD.
British Columbia, the epicenter of a crisis that has seen more than 30,000 overdose deaths nationwide since 2016, is only the second jurisdiction in North America to decriminalize personal possession of small amounts (up to 2.5 grams) of hard drugs, after the U.S. state of Oregon did so in November 2020. (AFP)
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