[4] In response to the demonstrations, Deputy Minister of Labour Mackenzie King travelled to British Columbia and interviewed two opium merchants.
King was concerned with the growing numbers of white opium users and believed that Canada had to set the precedent on drug use worldwide.
The amendment also made it an offence to be in a building that contained narcotics, notably shifting the burden of proof to the defendant for this crime.
[6] Historians often point to the 1922 publication of Emily Murphy’s The Black Candle (which was reprinted in 1973) as the inspiration for the addition of the three extra drugs.
However, according to Canadian Historian Catherine Carstairs, Murphy was not respected by the Division of Narcotic Control because of the creative liberties she took in presenting research they had assisted her with.
"There were insinuations in the records that the bureaucrats at the division of narcotic control did not think very highly of Emily Murphy and did not pay attention to what she was writing about, and they didn't consider her a particularly accurate or valuable source.
Although consensus in Parliament appeared to be gradually turning in favour of implementing the Commission's recommendations, the drug laws remained unchanged, although a bill to remove cannabis from the Narcotic Control Act and create a new Part V of the Food and Drugs Act reducing sentences for all offences did pass the Senate but failed in the House of Commons.
[citation needed] The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Canada's office in Ontario was raided by police after being charged with breaking Section 462.2 of the Criminal Code for handing out brochures advocating the legalization of cannabis.
The same year, an Ontario farmer was allowed to grow ten acres of cannabis on his property to research its agricultural potential.
[8] Since the enactment of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, various courts have struck down parts of the law and amendments have been passed by Parliament.
[citation needed] In 2001, Canada became the first country in the world to legalize the use of cannabis for the terminally ill[1] and three years later the Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler announced that legislation is being proposed in the House of Commons to allow for lesser penalties for the possession of cannabis, while toughening penalties for large drug operations.
[citation needed] On 31 January 2023, British Columbia began a three-year pilot program of decriminalizing small amounts (deemed a total of 2.5 grams or less) of a range of drugs for personal use, including: morphine,[9] heroin, meth, ecstasy, crack cocaine and fentanyl.
[10][11][12] On the one year anniversary of the pilot, continued drug overdoses have been attributed to confused messaging from the government and the arbitrary possession limit of 2.5 grams which has "open[ed] the door for things like discretionary policing, which we know kind of is heavily imbued with bias and tends to be targeted towards poor and racialized populations" according to Nicole Luongo of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.