The Canadian biotechnology company Sunshine Earth Labs announced Thursday that it has obtained a license from Health Canada to produce and sell cocaine.
The license agreement comes after a radical change in the positions of the State which seeks to deal with a serious crisis of overdoses with opiates which caused thousands of deaths, by the decriminalization of the possession of small quantities of cocaine, heroin and other so-called hard drugs.
Ottawa granted a Criminal Code waiver in January to the province of British Columbia for a three-year pilot project. The objective: to fight against the stigma associated with the use of narcotics which prevents some from seeking help.
Advocates for the measure are also calling for a safer supply of drugs to be available for people with addictions. They face an increased risk of overdose from drugs bought illegally on the street.
In a statement, Sunshine Earth Labs said it had received permission from Health Canada to “legally possess, produce, sell, and distribute coca leaf and cocaine,” as well as morphine, ecstasy, and heroin.
A similar licensing deal was offered in February to another company Adastra Labs, which until then had only made products related to cannabis extracts.
Adastra’s license also authorizes it to produce psilocybin and psilocin, hallucinogens more commonly associated with mushrooms whose consumption produces effects similar to LSD.
“We will assess how the commercialization of this substance fits into our business model at Adastra, in order to put ourselves in a position to support the demand for a safe supply of cocaine,” said its boss Michael Forbes.
British Columbia follows the US state of Oregon which decriminalized so-called hard drugs in November 2020.
The province is the epicenter of a crisis that has seen more than 10,000 people die of drug overdoses since a public health emergency was declared in 2016 — representing about six daily deaths, out of a population of some five million.