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‘Misunderstanding’ Caused BC Company to Say Health Canada Licensed It to Sell Cocaine, Trudeau Says

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2023. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it was a “misunderstanding” that caused a British Columbia-based company to say Health Canada granted it permission to produce, sell, and distribute cocaine.

Trudeau told reporters in Winnipeg on March 3 that he was “as surprised” as B.C. Premier David Eby when he heard that the company Adastra Holdings Ltd., which produces marijuana for adult use and medical sales out of its headquarters in Langley, B.C., announced on Feb. 22 that it was permitted by Health Canada to “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine.

The company said in a news release that it had been granted a Health Canada amendment to its controlled substance dealer’s licence on Feb. 17.

Eby first responded to the company’s statement on March 2, saying he was “astonished” that Health Canada would grant the amendment and that his government would be contacting Health Canada for answers.

“I was as surprised as the premier of British Columbia was to see that company was talking about selling cocaine on the open market or commercializing it,” Trudeau said on March 3.

“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, but it is not a permission to sell it commercially or provide it on an open market.”

The prime minister said his government is actively addressing the issue.

“We are working very quickly with this company to correct their misunderstanding that their press release has caused,” he said, adding that decriminalizing the commercial sale of cocaine “is not something that this government is looking at furthering.”

Decriminalization
B.C. decriminalized possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain hard drugs, including cocaine, beginning on Jan. 31 following Health Canada’s approval of three-year experimental decriminalization exemption program back in May 2022.

Federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett has said that B.C.’s decriminalization plan will reduce “the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

In 2022, B.C. had an average of over six people dying from drug overdoses every day, and over 11,000 people in the province have died from illicit drug overdoses since the provincial government declared a public health emergency in 2016.

Federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the decriminalization policy, saying the solution to the issue of addiction is “more treatment and recovery,” rather than “more poison.”

Both Trudeau and Justice Minister David Lametti have said Ottawa has no plans for a national drug decriminalization policy.

The Canadian Press and Marnie Cathcart contributed to this report.

(Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)
Peter Wilson

BC Company Granted Permission by Health Canada to Produce and Sell Cocaine

A British Columbia cannabis company says it has received approval from Health Canada to produce, sell, and distribute cocaine.

A woman (L) prepares to inject herself with an unknown substance as a man sits in a wheelchair outside Insite, the supervised consumption site, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C., on Feb. 21, 2017. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

In a news release on Feb. 22, Adastra Holdings Ltd., which produces marijuana for adult use and medical sales out of headquarters in Langley, B.C., announced that it was granted a Health Canada amendment to its Controlled Drug and Substances Dealer’s License on Feb. 17.

The company can now “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine, in addition to previously being allowed to deal up to 1,000 grams of psilocybin and psilocin, otherwise known as magic mushrooms.

The news release indicates Adastra can “interact with up to 250 grams” of cocaine, and can import coca leaves to manufacture and synthesize the hard drug in Canada.

Adastra’s Health Canada approval follows a federal government approval for B.C. that, as of Jan. 31, granted the province a temporary three-year exemption to allow adults to legally possess up to 2.5 grams of any combination of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, heroin, fentanyl, and/or morphine for personal use, at no risk of being arrested, charged, or having their drugs seized.

The CEO of Adastra, Michael Forbes, is a pharmacist who formerly worked in multiple methadone pharmacies, according to the company, and is a proponent of “harm reduction,” which is a philosophy that promotes reducing negative consequences associated with drug use, but without requiring abstinence from drugs or addiction treatment.

Adastra’s release says he previously “piloted a needle exchange program” at the direction of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010. Forbes is the creator of the Forbes Group, which has multiple companies ranging from moving storage, cannabis, health care services, and advertising.

The federal government has been supportive of the B.C. decriminalization plan, with federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett saying on Jan. 30 that it will reduce “the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

Conservatives have been critical of the plan, with leader Pierre Poilievre saying B.C.’s approach to the issue has been an “abject failure.”

“Decriminalization has been in place in B.C. now since about 2017 in reality,” he said on Feb. 1. “The results are in. The debate is over. It has been a disaster, an absolute abject failure.”

By Marnie Cathcart

Public Health Canada to Collect Online Data to Target the Vaccine Hesitant

Story From: Noé Chartier is an Epoch Times reporter based in Montreal. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret

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Public Health Canada to Collect Online Data to Target the Vaccine Hesitant

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has announced a contract with a social media intelligence collection firm based in the U.K. to obtain data on vaccine hesitant individuals in order to be able to deliver targeted messaging to break through their hesitancy, contract details indicate.

“In preparation for increased vaccination education, promotion, and outreach, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is requiring the services of a consultant to analyze the vaccine related conversations on social media and PHAC social media initiative and campaign performance,” says the tender notice description posted online on Dec. 22.

The notice says the contract will be awarded to U.K.-based Pulsar Platform if no other supplier submits a bid meeting the requirements before the closing date. The estimated value of the contract is $339,000.

Pulsar describes itself as an “audience intelligence company” using artificial intelligence and “smart human minds” to comb through conversational and behavioural data on social media.

The notice says the consultant will need to analyze Twitter and other online sites and platforms spanning three years of historical data.

PHAC is seeking to obtain information on individuals who are participating in and influencing online conversations about vaccination.

It wants reports produced by the consultant to “provide PHAC an actionable understanding of the vaccine conversation landscape online and the conversation participants, while determining a conversation baseline,” according to the Statement of Work.

Once this data is obtained, PHAC will run a tailored messaging campaign, which it says will seek to target “communities of interest,” such as “indigenous peoples and millennial males,” states the Advance Contract Award Notice.

The study is to be rerun within a three to four month period to “monitor shifts in attitudes and confidence levels,” says the notice.

‘Keyword-Based’
PHAC lays out how the consultant must conduct its work, including the establishment of a “keyword-based social listening tracker to capture social media conversations around vaccinations in Canada.”

Data must also be parsed along conversation themes such as “experiences with long Covid, previous vaccine side effects, engaging with mis/disinformation, shift in perceived risk of infection.”

PHAC also seeks to obtain a breakdown of reasons for vaccine hesitancy for different regions and cities to allow more targeted messaging.

Along with identifying regions, cities, and subgroups such as First Nations communities, PHAC is also requesting segmentations of key audiences to include “demographics, interests, affinities, online behaviours, and the leading topics of vaccine hesitancy conversation, per each sub-community.”

The Statement of Work provides an example of what the consultant should do once a sub-community has been identified.

It says that once a community of “Toronto University Students that indicate low confidence in vaccinations” has been identified, then some factors should be investigated.

These include their reasons for being hesitant and the topics of their conversations, the media they consume and the content they share, and the tone they use when discussing their vaccination status.

The Epoch Times contacted PHAC to find out if previous such programs have been implemented and to learn more about how the data from private individuals will be protected, exploited, and if it will be shared with other departments.

PHAC was also asked whether it consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) on the program. A response was not obtained before publication time.

The OPC was also contacted to know whether it was aware of PHAC’s social media collection program, but a response was not received immediately.

Cellphone Tracking
PHAC has been embroiled in a data collection-related controversy in recent months when it was revealed it was analyzing the anonymized movement of millions of Canadians through the tracking of their cellphones, unbeknownst to them.

PHAC had been obtaining the data from carrier Telus and other cellphone tracking companies, but in December 2021 it sought a contractor to directly access data from cellphone towers to conduct its analysis.

The data has been used to measure the compliance of Canadians while provinces implemented COVID-19 lockdowns.

When this became known, MPs started examining the issue and the Commons ethics committee told the government last spring that Canadians should be allowed to opt out of the data collection program.

The OPC also said it was investigating the matter, but the results have yet to be announced.

PHAC and the OPC have been asked about the status of the contract and the investigation.

Story From: Noé Chartier is an Epoch Times reporter based in Montreal. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret

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Censorship Facebook 2020 Twitter Censorship

There is no shortage of debate regarding the Coronavirus. Are masks really effective? Are the statistics realistic or inaccurate? Is this a virus that can be spread through the air or just through vapours? Or is it not in the air?

This is a pandemic that is affecting the entire world. Of course we’re going to talk about it and of course we’re going to disagree about it. One thing is true though. Without information and education we are never going to get rid of this thing. Without knowing what’s going on or how prevalent the virus is, we are never going to be able to flatten the curve or help prevent more unnecessary deaths.

So why is it that Facebook and Twitter are stopping us from having these discussions? If you so much as mention COVID-19 on Facebook you are immediately blocked from posting, and accused of false information. Even if you say “My grandmother died from Covid today”, they tell you it is false information. They don’t know if your grandmother was perfectly healthy, or if she had your mother when she was 16 and she’s only in her fifties now. They don’t know if she had a physical 6 months ago and passed it with flying colours. All they know is that you mentioned COVID-19 so you must be wrong.

Sharing TRULY false news isn’t particularly admirable, and can have serious consequences, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t share opinions and research. The president of the United States says false and misleading things all the time. The only time he ever gets CENSORED though, is when he mentions COVID-19. The powers-that-be that censor the internet have no problem with him saying horribly racist stuff or ‘grab her by the p****!’, but even HE is not allowed to comment on COVID-19.

None of us should automatically believe anything we read online regardless of topic. We should fact-check and we should do research before we share anything that we are unsure about. That being said, we should be allowed to share SOMETHING about COVID-19, considering how much it’s affecting our day-to-day lives!

Some of the most horrific events in human history have taken place because of a lack of information, a lack of understanding, and sheer ignorance. When it comes to a pandemic that is killing people all over the world, the last thing society needs is to be SILENCED. How do you feel about the censorship around the virus? Send me an email at Melissa@ with your own experiences and opinions. If all of us tell Twitter and Facebook that we want the freedom to talk about this very important topic, maybe they will stop censoring us.

With that in mind, I’m not even sure why I’m writing this article. It’s probably going to be censored and nobody is going to be allowed to read it!

Yes This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6%

If you visit this link, you will find that the statistical analysis of Covid-19 death rates is pretty open to interpretation. According to the Center for Disease Control, only 6% of deaths could be directly related to COVID-19. The remainder included patients who had other underlying health conditions with an average of 2.6 conditions in addition to having contracted COVID-19. Studies have shown that COVID-19 does affect the respiratory system, but if somebody already suffers from respiratory distress, the virus is going to hit them much harder, potentially leading to further damage and, in some cases, death.

There are a number of underlying conditions listed beside the patients who were said to have died from COVID-19, including diabetes and heart problems. Having an underlying health condition increases the chances of complications and death when one contracts viruses like COVID-19, the flu, or even the common cold. While the pandemic is certainly not helping people who already suffer from health problems, this data shows that the statistics could be misleading. These people aren’t necessarily dying from the virus. If the virus didn’t exist then maybe a lot of these people could have made it another year or another decade. But we will never know that. It is a sad fact that this virus is essentially going around the globe and eliminating the weak and the sick. Natural selection at its cruelest.

As with anything Covid-related, this recent article by the Center for Disease Control has the potential to spark much debate. But, if medical professionals and disease experts want to comment or debuke claims like this, they have to be given access to this information and study it! I’m sure people have questions and opinions, but if we’re not allowed to share it, we’re never going to get the answers we want.