News B.C. firm says it's been approved by Health Canada to make and sell cocaine

[thegreenhand]

B.C. firm says it's been approved by Health Canada to make and sell cocaine​

CBC
2 Mar 2023

Excerpt:

A B.C. cannabis company says Health Canada has granted it the right to possess, produce, sell and distribute cocaine.

Adastra Labs says in a statement that Health Canada gave it approval on Feb. 17 for an amendment under its controlled substance dealer's licence.

It says the amended licence allows the company to "interact" with up to 250 grams of cocaine and to import coca leaves in order to make and synthesize the substance.

 

[thegreenhand]

Interesting choice to put the safe supply initiative in the hands of a private company. Sorta runs counter to how the BC safe supply movement came about (at least from my undertsanding of the campaign)

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

Is there any logical train of thought going on behind this small-scale initiative? BC has a opioid epidemic in general so why not safely supply the opioid to further remove part of the black-market?

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Harm reduction should never be a profit driven model

 

[Foreigner]

BC is turning into a total ghetto shithole. Can't wait to get out of here. Vancouver is starting to look like a third world nation.

I'm fine with HR policy but without a comprehensive system of support and reinforcement, it's just fueling the drug epidemic with no exit strategy.

 

[ninjapirateroberts]

I think cocaine should be produced, distributed, and taxed by the government to curb the profits of the cartels. People are gonna do drugs anyway; at least with governments regulating them, they'd get a safer supply (by preventing contamination with shit like fentanyl and harmful cutting agents).

I think it should be available to anyone 19+ (just like how Canada decriminalized and regulates cannabis supply). Just like any other "social drug" like alcohol or cannabis. Law enforcement cannot win the "war on drugs"; the best they can do is produce, distribute, and tax the supply of drugs (and people will buy from a reliable source any day; there is no "black market" for weed in Canada anymore). I think that's the only way to make cartels obsolete.

 

[thegreenhand]

Pure cocaine is dangerous as fuck. People are gonna do a normal sized line and drop.

Heh yeah, they may have to (safely) cut it to adjust to typical purity.

I wouldn’t say the pure drug is necessarily dangerous. But for people unaccustomed to it, there will certainly be a learning curve

 

[S.J.B.]

This is being disingenuously reported. The company is not allowed to sell cocaine to the public any more than any other pharmaceutical company can sell a scheduled drug to the public. They are simply allowed to provide cocaine for research or medical purposes to licensed academic groups, pharmacies, hospitals, etc. The Special Access Program for drugs like heroin, cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms, etc. that aren't approved drugs in Canada has been in place for quite a while now, and it's always been and continues to be very hard to get authorized to have access to a drug under this plan.

 

[thegreenhand]

This is being disingenuously reported. The company is not allowed to sell cocaine to the public any more than any other pharmaceutical company can sell a scheduled drug to the public. They are simply allowed to provide cocaine for research or medical purposes to licensed academic groups, pharmacies, hospitals, etc. The Special Access Program for drugs like heroin, cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms, etc. that aren't approved drugs in Canada has been in place for quite a while now, and it's always been and continues to be very hard to get authorized to have access to a drug under this plan.

They've retracted their statement

Perhaps the motivation for such an initial claim was financial:

 

[SpiralusSancti]

I think cocaine should be produced, distributed, and taxed by the government to curb the profits of the cartels.

Only help with that would be if it’s legalized in source country (with presumption it’s not ruled with cartels). And illegal market will stay anyway, as it does with booze and cigs and weed which are not nearly profitable as coke. So if Canada legalizes, they might as well just sell seized stuff and buy seized stuff and purify from other countries.

Legal coke, make world better place...nah, it wont work until it’s legal everywhere and and ahead humanity, as behind are hundreds of years of going on from prohibiting to allowing stuff and it doesn’t happen simultaneously so it’s a long, long way if we don’t get form some kind of truly influence international body to work on issues of drugs and working out what’s best WW.

 

[Fertile]

Pure cocaine is dangerous as fuck. People are gonna do a normal sized line and drop.

Yeah - the VERY first time I tried coke, it was medical cocaine solution someone had dried. A tiny bump was intense. I never got that feeling again so maybe I have a line every 4-5 years, but every time it disappoints.

And yes - some regular users spun out because they didn't know it was essentially 100% pure. Funny to watch, not funny to have to wipe up the puke.

 

[ninjapirateroberts]

Only help with that would be if it’s legalized in source country (with presumption it’s not ruled with cartels). And illegal market will stay anyway, as it does with booze and cigs and weed which are not nearly profitable as coke. So if Canada legalizes, they might as well just sell seized stuff and buy seized stuff and purify from other countries.

Legal coke, make world better place...nah, it wont work until it’s legal everywhere and and ahead humanity, as behind are hundreds of years of going on from prohibiting to allowing stuff and it doesn’t happen simultaneously so it’s a long, long way if we don’t get form some kind of truly influence international body to work on issues of drugs and working out what’s best WW.

There are thousands of farmers in South America whose livelihood is dependent on cultivating coca leaves. But they're paid pennies by the cartel while the dealers and middlemen make millions. So maybe making the production of cocaine illegal and making the cultivation of coca leaves for export legal would work (where Canada could import raw coca leaves and produce cocaine at an industrial scale within Canada). That way, they also pay a fair price to the poor farmers who are the most exploited in the cocaine supply chain.

 

[Fertile]

True - the only way I reliably enjoy cocaine is drinking 'real' Van Miarani i.e. I drop a gram of coke into a bottle of wine. It's a totally different thing and if SA farmers could provide such a 'tonic wine' then I would be supportive.