There is one colleague of a Canadian vendor that has been charged with trafficking mephedrone. This is the subject of the "Canada's First Bust" link posted above, but charges have not gone through and they will most likely be dropped. Most of the charges make absolutely no sense at all, were completely unlawful, and it was more of an attempt to prevent the colleague from continuing to work by forbidding him to use a cell phone and placing him in the custody of his parents until his verdict.
The whole case is ridiculous. Along with mephedrone, they charged him with trafficking AMT which is not controlled or even grey area as there is no tryptamine analog clause. Instead of charging him with 4-methylmethcathinone they charged him with the sale of methcathinone. How cops were able to charge him with the intent to traffick methcathinone when tests showed that it was 4-methylmethcathinone shows how unlawful these charges are. And how Canadian police were even able to press charges for the sale of alpha-methyltryptamine when it is not specifically scheduled and does not fall under any possible analog clause is even more ridiculously unlawful.
Canada does not have a catch-all analog act like the USA or phenethylamine, tryptamine and cathinone analog clauses like the UK. We do have a PCP analog clause and an amphetamine analog clause. Schedule 3 of the CDSA lists amphetamines and indicates the salts, isomers and esthers of amphetamine analogs as illegal. The section under the amphetamines list is basic amphetamine itself followed by the substituted amphetamines that are specifically scheduled. Interestingly enough there is no mention of cathinone under the amphetamine list and after the amphetamine list, in section 19, cathinone is listed separately from the amphetamines. There is no mention of analogs of cathinone being illegal like there is under amphetamines. So based on the layout of the CDSA, Canadian law does not recognize cathinone as an amphetamine as it is listed under a different section on its own rather than in the amphetamine section. This ambiguity means that 4-methylmethcathinone could be considered illegal as an amphetamine analog, or considered legal as cathinone is not listed under the amphetamine list and there is no mention of cathinone analogs being illegal. Because of the ambiguity one could argue that the law is unconstitutional, so in general most people agree that 4-methylmethcathinone is not illegal and prosecuting someone for mephedrone would be unsuccessful as it would be unconstitutional. The Canadian government may claim that it is illegal, but the chances of being succesfully charged is very low based on the unconstitutional ambiguity of the law. If the Canadian government considers cathinone to be too distinct to be considered a substituted-amphetamine and listed with the amphetamines, how could 4-methylmethcathinone be considered an amphetamine analog if it has more substitutions and is less related to amphetamine compared to cathinone? This could be argued rather easily.
The interesting thing about Canada's definition of an analog is it too is extremely vague to the point of not making sense. As I mentioned Canada also has a PCP analog clause. Ketamine was added under PCP as an illegal analog of PCP. Ketamine is not a structural analog of PCP, yet it was scheduled as a PCP analog. This means there really is no recognizable definition of the Canadian scheduling system's definition of an analog. DXM could be considered as much of an analog of PCP as ketamine is, although it is not as closely related, but the definition of an analog seems to indicate the type of high it produces based on the inclusion of ketamine as a PCP analog. Yet DXM is openly sold. Also ephedra extracts are openly sold, yet ephedra extracts contain amphetamines. So there are chemicals that are considred illegal based on the amphetamine and PCP analog clauses that are openly sold in Canada. Based on the broad definition of an analog all of the 2C's could be considred illegal amphetamine analogs as well. This is because most of the main DOx chemicals are specifically scheduled under the amphetamine list such as DOM, DOB, DOC and DOET, but not DOI. So the analogs of the amphetamines DOM, DOB, DOC and DOET are considered illegal. Does the amphetamine analog clause only include analogs that have an amphetamine skeleton in their structure? I think Health Canada has suggested that it must contain amphetamine within the structure to be considered an analog of amphetamine, but if not then 2C-D, 2C-C and 2C-E could be considred illegal analogs of their amphetamine counterparts DOM, DOC and DOET. Although DOI is not specifically listed, 2C-I could still be considred an analog of DOC even though it is not quite as closely related to DOC as 2C-C is.
Based on suggestions by Health Canada it seems that an amphetamine analog must contain the amphetamine skeleton within the structure therefore the 2C's are exempt (except 2C-B which is illegal under UN law), but 6-APB, an analog of the MDA amphetamine is considred illegal and 4-FA is considered illegal. Based on the structure of the CDSA, cathinones are not considered amphetamines so mephedrone, methylone, butylone, MDPV, naphyrone and other substitued-cathinones are exempt.
Of course depending on how the scheduling system is interpreted the 2C's as well the cathinones could be considered illegal, but there has been no precedent to show this. Customs have confiscated many phenethylamines, cathinones and tryptamines without giving any indication as to why and without pressing charges, so there have not been any charges for importing cathinones or phenethylamines, although customs may confiscate completely unscheduled tryptamines which seems unlawful. And considering how unlawful and how disorganized the charges against the vendor colleague in the link above my post have been, it is unlikely that there will be any precedent from that outcome.
I believe there may have been one case where a person was simply fined for importing personal amounts of a 2C compound, but since customs has inspected and released large shipments of 2C's and cathinones they are generally considered legal in Canada. If anyone has more information on anyone being fined for importing a 2C or cathinone, please share.
Of course publically Health Canada may claim that certain chemicals such as mephedrone are illegal in Canada, but no charges have been successful as far as I know. Health Canada claims the synthetic cannabinoids are illegal too because under cannabis it also mentions "similar preperations". These completely vague terms and structuring of the CDSA indicates how unconstitutional it would be to actually charge someone with mephedrone, 2C-E or JWH-018 for instance, although they probably work as a deterant for some people who are reluctant to risk any possibility of being convicted.
Out of the research chemicals I can think of at the moment, I think this is complete as far as "common" research chemicals goes, the only common research chemicals that have not been cleared by customs and are clearly illegal in Canada are:
DOI and DOC
6-APB and 6-APDB
4-fluoroamphetamine
4-MeO-PCP
3-MeO-PCP
GBL
