Canada is working to stem its hard drug crisis. The biotechnology company Sunshine Earth Labs announced on Thursday March 2 that it had obtained a license from Canada’s federal health agency 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, d heroin and other so-called hard drugs.

Ottawa granted a waiver to the Criminal Code, Canada’s penal code, in January to the western province of British Columbia for a three-year pilot project, which aims to address the stigma associated with drug use that prevents some from asking for 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 linked to drugs bought illegally on the street.

In a statement, Sunshine Earth Labs said it has received permission from Health Canada to “lawfully possess, produce, sell, and distribute coca leaf and cocaine,” as well as morphine, ecstasy, and the heroine. 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, the consumption of which produces effects similar to LSD.

“We will assess how the commercialization of this substance fits into our business model at Adastra, to position ourselves to support the demand for a safe supply of cocaine,” said its boss Michael Forbes.

British Columbia follows the US state of Oregon (northwest) which decriminalized so-called hard drugs in November 2020. The province is the epicenter of a crisis which has seen more than 10,000 people die of overdose since a public health emergency was declared in 2016 – accounting for around six daily deaths, out of a population of some five million.