Drug Companies Can Legally Start Selling Cocaine, Heroin, and MDMA | Hacker News Reader

Drug Companies Can Legally Start Selling Cocaine, Heroin, and MDMA

vice.com

65 pointsdevilcius73 comments

> But it’s not clear under what circumstances the companies will be able to sell the drugs

Only because your article wouldn’t have any bite if you told the truth.

It is clear. Health Canada clarified already: it’s for research and prescribed use in rather limited cases.

The hack author wants you to feel a narrative that they’re going to just start selling cocaine to the public.

> In a statement to VICE News, Health Canada said Adastra is licensed to produce the drugs for scientific and medical purposes but cannot sell products to the general public.

Oh, so you do know. Rendering your earlier sentence wrong. In the same article.

VICE is a tabloid masquerading as an investigative journalism outlet

This isn’t something unique to VICE, the vast majority of MSM utilise click-bait headlines to drive engagement.

In defence of VICE, their video arm is still one of the best outlets for drug related content. Their print arm, I could take it or leave it.

When I was in Peru coca tea was available everywhere for literally pennies. It is legal in most of South America. It doesn't even get you high it just sort of helps with elevation sickness.

This seems to upset US politicians from time to time and cause diplomatic spats, they were adamant against the sale of it despite it being traditional in that part of the world. Punitive about it.

Now it is legal in Canada and not a peep. Tres Bizarre.

There’s a pretty vast gap between coca tea and refined cocaine, isn’t there?

Sort of. It's analogous to Beer vs Whiskey: Same psychoactive, but one substance has been chemically concentrated. Both are bad for you but one can be consumed in much lower quantities and concentrations so the health risks are a bit attenuated. Drinking a beer a lunch on a Friday is generally acceptable, but whisky at lunch any day would raise some eyebrows. That said if you start drinking 5 beers a night every night your friends and family might intervene.

Not really analogous. A whiskey beverage is usually served at one alcohol unit of strength and has the same alcohol as a beer.

In fact, someone who has a whiskey neat for lunch is likely going to get less alcohol than someone who has a pint from a microbrew. 16 ounces at 10% abv vs 1.5 ounces at 40%.

In both cases the psychoactive is the same but the concentration is different. It is a fair nuance you bring up that an unregulated refining and cutting process has a lot of variability in its amount which can mean taking a rather large amount. While drinking a beer can have more total alcohol than a shot of whiskey, the social stigma is there for reasons. Concentrated consumption is on a different level in terms of behavior and results. I frequently see people have a single beer over a meal, but I don't usually see people have just one shot of whisky...

I frequently see people have a whisky neat or something like a martini and that’s it. It’s a low carb substitution for drinking beer.

> Not really analogous. A whiskey beverage is usually served at one alcohol unit of strength and has the same alcohol as a beer.

The only place I’ve ever gone to a bar where this is actually true is in Utah. Not to mention with the rise of craft beer even a beer isn’t a standard drink often as not.

You crush it and mix with water, add lime to turn it into a paste. The only other thing you need is a little potassium permanganate which is commonly used for lots of things.

Wouldn't say the gap is vast, it isn't a very involved process.

Maybe you mean there is a vast gap between Peru and Canada. Few thousand miles that.

A vast gap in potency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_tea

> Owing to the presence of these alkaloids, coca tea is a mild stimulant; its consumption may be compared to consumption of a moderately strong cup of coffee or tea.

We legalized or decriminalized all of that stuff in Oregon 3 years ago. You can get mushrooms now. Meth, heroin, cocaine, all decriminalized. Psychedelics can be used in a clinical setting: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/11/oregon-legalizes...

Decriminalization measure: https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_110,_Drug_Decriminali...

Clinical settings can violate "set and setting", though. Lots of people, including us, would not want to use psychedelics in a clinic isolated from the world. We'd want to be at home, in our comfy bed, playing nice music, while talking to our friends on the internet.

Luckily, in Oregon, possession of small amounts at home is only a civil violation, so it's basically OK as long as you don't get caught. Even if you do, there's no jail time, only a fine, and IIRC the fine will even be waived if you pass a psychiatric evaluation.

Obviously, possession being legal means nothing if you obtain it illegally. But it's completely legal to buy research chemicals online for "research purposes". Then, even if you end up consuming it, the sequence of events is that you bought a research chemical (which is fine) and then a research chemical in your possession was also a psychedelic in your possession (also fine) once you used it (also fine).

-Emily

https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/coca-not-dirty-word

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3875615

https://www.npr.org/2008/09/14/94518300/u-s-bolivia-ties-str...

can you get this in dispensaries or anything now? some how dispensaries in CA are selling mushrooms and even advertising them. I guess theres some weird middle ground? seen this in dc too, even like dmt carts. id make that drive for legit mdma lol

No, psychedelics are supposed to be done in a clinical setting by a licensed therapist. The only thing you can buy in a store is cannabis. All we basically did is say we're not going to spend resources fighting personal amounts of drugs. Still illegal to sell. There was one store in downtown Portland that was openly selling mushrooms, even advertising. They got shut down in a week or two once it hit the news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAvchkZq_WQ

I was in Portland recently to watch a game at Providence Park and could swear that I walked past a dispensary for mushrooms.

Edit: Found an article about it. https://nypost.com/2022/12/02/countrys-1st-magic-mushroom-sh...

For thousands of years people have munched coca leaves and made teas out of that and there has been no problems whatsoever.

The problem started when someone took a bunch of those leaves, mixed them with a bunch of chemicals to create a highly concentrated substance.

You mean Coca Cola? I agree, fizzy drinks are very bad for you. We should tax 'em.

Modern Coca Cola uses decocainized leaf extract.

I know it sounds wild but this factoid and the Coca Cola company have quite a bit to do with the US government attitude towards the coca leaf and its legal status.

See links posted upthread.

Cocaine is legal and schedule II here in the United States already. As is methamphetamine.

https://www.lannett.com/products/numbrino/ https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/00...

Yep, methamphetamine hydrochloride is sold as a prescription drug called Desoxyn.

We did a bunch of research on this when we started on amphetamines for ADHD treatment. Fortunately not meth, but dextroamphetamine.

-Emily

Technically yes, but I think what most people think of as "legal" is rather different from "can be prescribed by a doctor for a legitimate medical use".

> When I was in Peru coca tea was available everywhere for literally pennies.

Just for the sake of adding to this comparison: it takes 300 kilos of coca leaves to make 1 kilo of cocaine[1]. The coca leaf tea to cocaine analog, is somewhat like comparing extremely diluted orange juice (which has a natural amount of alcohol) with Everclear (96% proof).

---

[1] And I'll note that 300:1 is the low end of the spectrum. I've seen ranges from 400:1 to 600:1 being more realistic.

I did say the tea did not get you high. Felt akin to a strong coffee or Red Bull if that. Really did help with the high altitude.

It is also considered sacred and traditional by the indigenous. Probably for that very reason. Yet even at these low concentrations, US officials frequently demand it be outlawed.

Unless you're a Canadian drug company.

The story evolved later that day

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/justin-trude...

In the US MDMA started off as a legal drug until the mid 80s when the DEA made it illegal

Man, I remember the time when we had to pass a constitutional amendment to make a substance illegal. Now a government agency can just declare substances illegal without needing to justify it to anybody.

The DEA is evil. They drag their feet in allowing FDA approved medicines to be approved for sale. There was a law passed recently that they had N months to schedule it because they kept taking so long. If a single person in a study says a medicine gives them feelings of euphoria it can be subject to scheduling, which makes it an epic pain in the ass to acquire. They don’t allow electronic prescriptions to be sent for some drugs, and at least for mine, they can’t be for longer than 90 days.

For example, I am basically forced to take Vimpat, a DEA scheduled anti-epilepsy medicine. Due to the scheduling, I can only pick it up 2 days before it’s due for refill, and otherwise have to have a doctor provide me an early refill request. It’s like they don’t expect me to ever go on vacation or have a life. I feel chained down by this. The DEA treats me like a pleasure seeking drug addict. The sad thing is I am a drug addict, I just take it to stay alive, and don’t get any pleasure from this drug. If I don’t get it I’ll probably withdrawal and die. Also, who the hell is going to use a drug that costs $1400/month for pleasure?

I. Hate. The. DEA. For some of these epilepsy drugs the scheduling seems cruel and senseless. All it does is make life difficult for doctors, pharmacies, and patients. For what??? No one wants to take these drugs. It’s a joke that this stupid agency would even consider these to have some recreational value. Sure the benzos, but for the majority of them, no.

A friend of mine calls this Suffering Theology. Anything that might bring pleasure is bad. It's why so many medical justifications had to be made to make marijuana legal. It's why we have to say "oh, shrooms heal depression" or whatever shit before we can decriminalize.

There is a deep Puritanism that ramifies through America. Suffering is necessary. Pain is necessary.

I'd say it's likely much more banal than that. There are armies of bureaucrats and agents whose livelihood and source of influence is rooted in the war on drugs. It is against their interests to go easy.

There's probably some of that. But this also reminds me of SSC's Against Against Pseudoaddiction[0]. Seems like some people really really want to be able to say, oooh I caught me a drug addict, nice try you lousy addict!

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...

Hell it’s a pain in the ass for me to try to keep a supply of psuedophredrine. Whenever I get a cold, let alone Covid, Sudafed is the only thing that keeps my overactive immune system in check and keeps my asthma from flaring up.

There is basically a national registry that records when I buy Sudafed. But let someone even mention a registry for guns and people go nuts.

See also: now that drugs affect “rural America” and the burbs it’s a “disease” caused by a lax government. But when it was mostly affecting “the inner city” it was because of “poor morals” and absentee fathers (who were overwhelmingly targeted by the “War on Drugs”)

And yes I’m well aware that both political parties are culpable

One thing I love about this site is how people from all walks of life contribute.

Congratulations on reaching your hundredth birthday.

Because they were born before 1970, which was when the Controlled Substances Act allowed the executive branch to make certain drugs illegal :)

The controlled substances act is not a constitutional amendment.

Before the CSA, the most notable legal instrument for banning substances was the constitutional amendment.

After the CSA, the most notable legal instrument for banning constitutional substances was an administrative decision.

That's a pretty willfully naive answer though. The fact that the CSA was passable at all is indicative that something had changed. Because if the legislative branch can grant the executive branch the right to make drugs illegal, the legislative branch must have had that ability to do so without a constitutional amendment on its own already. The question is what changed that made the CSA possible?

The correct answer is that in the 30s the courts started taking the position that the federal government could do things that weren't explicitly granted as within their powers, and most types of trade were now within "interstate commerce"

It's also generally just a wrong answer that misses big things like the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act in the 30s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Food,_Drug,_and_Cosmet...

Other legal methods could absolutely have been used at the time, making it a constitutional amendment was a tactic. The idea was to make it difficult or impossible to challenge or repeal. If it was a medical regulation, that could just be changed by a later administration. A law might be challenged before the Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment insulated it from Supreme Court oversight and made it much harder to overturn legislatively.

It was not really a tactic, they didn’t believe the federal government had the legislative power to effect prohibition without it: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/1201/what-were-t...

> Man, I remember the time when we had to pass a constitutional amendment to make a substance illegal.

You mean the one adopted for alcohol after prohibition started, and which made it so that we had to pass a Constitutional. Amendment to allow the substance?

We always had the choice to do that for other drugs to make it harder to legalize, but its probably a good idea we haven’t.

It’s amazing. The regime loves all the agencies/departments though as it maintains power in the event the people elect someone that would give democracy back to the people.

These agencies just have carte-blanche to pass laws based on whatever whim they might have. They set limits on things and decide what and how to regulate.

That’s how drug classification works - molecules don’t start off as banned.

Actually... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/legal-highs-...

Unstated - in countries with working judicial review systems. The UK legal highs laws were malformed from the start.

The DEA has to justify its existence somehow...

The DEA is not just chasing street drug dealers. They also went after US companies that helped manufacturing the opioid crisis with oxycontin and fentanyl and tried to shut them down.

Unfortunately, big pharma talked to their congressmen buddies to limit the action of the DEA. (see Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act)

So you’re saying they’re just chasing street drug dealers

> Unfortunately, big pharma talked to their congressmen buddies to limit the action of the DEA. (see Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act)

Yet again with enough _protection money_ the feds go after the low hanging fruit.

Good grief, the media is really running with this lol.

"scientific and medical purposes only"

Don't let the truth stand in the way of a good headline.

oxycotin, which is opium, should only be used for medical purposes. Yet somehow pharmaceuticals got doctors to prescribe until we have an opioid crisis in the US.

Oxycontin is not opium, it is a semisynthetic opioid that is not found in opium. It is a modified version of codeine

One of them had to retract their statement after it caught the attention of the province’s prime minister as well as the federal prime minister.

link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/justin-trude...

Minor correction, provinces don't have prime minister's they have premier's.

Any luck they'll create something like a Managed Alcohol Program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_alcohol_program

Unclear what benefit there is to stopping people addicted to opiates getting those opiates cleanly and cheaply.

> Unclear what benefit there is to stopping people addicted to opiates getting those opiates cleanly and cheaply.

“Addicted to opiates” is a big spectrum. Someone dependent on a mild recreational dose can possibly continue like that for a long time if, and only if, they don’t try to escalate their dose. The issue is that the recreational value wears off quickly as tolerance sets in, which means they’re only taking the opiate to avoid withdrawals at that point. So addicts start increasing their dose, or they try to play games where they go into withdrawal for a while so they can get a small “high” when they redose. This is why addicts are transitioned to maintenance therapy on maintenance-specific medications.

Prolonged opioid use can also worsen pain due to counter-regulation in certain systems, which creates further desire to increase doses over the very long term. Vicious cycle.

For opiate users taking moderate to high doses, it’s not so simple. These will take a toll over time and the users simply can’t function at their jobs, their personal lives, or even in taking care of their own health. They often go through a period of illusion where they feel like they can be functional addicts forever and may fool friends, family, and coworkers for some time. However, the high doses will destroy their ability to function over time.

The idea that opioid abusers can be fine if they just have a perpetual clean supply doesn’t really pan out. Even chronic pain patients on purely therapeutic regimens with zero recreational value (post tolerance) have a litany of problems over the long term.

I've been in countries where you can pick up opiate-laced cough syrup without a prescription. It was nice when you got a ridiculous cough and didn't want to (wait for) get an appointment just to get a cough syrup you knew you obviously needed.

I don't see the point in gate-keeping drugs. Let darwinism run its course.

What things do you feel like 'gate-keeping'

Why them and not drugs?

How are they different?

The provincial health care system in British Columbia already sources drugs like mdma, heroin, and cocaine. This is part of the “safe supply” program which is in a weird legal gray area. As far as Im aware, the current suppliers of safe supply narcotics are drug dealers. So this is a much better alternative.

Is this really news? There have always been a couple of companies given license to produce such things for various narrow purposes.

Cocaine is used as an anesthetic in some nasal and eye surgeries for example. Research and testing purposes also need clean standards to use for comparison.

Good thing we don't allow this in the US! Wait a sec...

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/product/cerillian/m009

Oddly, this may create problems for end-users that are currently able to acquire these substances through a prescription through the "Special Access Program", which grants the ability to import drugs not available in Canada, which means your choice of suppliers.

If there is a domestic licensed supplier, and only one, Health Canada will likely force you to go through them and pay whatever they ask.

There was a time not so long ago when you could buy a pint of whisky, a couple vials of heroin and cocaine, and a sandwich all at your local Rexall.

Even if I could do that today, I wouldn't. Those sandwiches always look suspect.

    “They are only permitted for sale to other licence holders who have cocaine listed on
    their licence, pharmacists, practitioners, hospitals, or the holder of a section 56(1)
    exemption for research purposes,” the agency said.

Wonder if "research tourism" is expected to become a thing? ;)

That's basically how California marijuana licenses were handed out before it was legalized.

You darn well can bet it is already.

They were already legal drug dealers, what's the difference?

CANADIAN companies.

"A Canadian weed company and a psychedelics company have received government licenses to make and distribute the drugs under certain circumstances."

> Drug Companies Can Legally Start Selling Cocaine, Heroin, and MDMA

So they evolved from organized crime to drug dealers.

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