Free high dose THC edibles for hard-drug users in DTES at centre of B.C. court case

published on September 4, 2022 by Sarah Grochowski in Vancouver Sun

The owner of an unlicensed dispensary working to provide Downtown Eastside drug users with low-cost cannabis to replace their opioid use is scheduled to appear in provincial court next Wednesday on drug-trafficking charges.

Neil Magnuson, who heads the Cannabis Substitution Project through the Healing Wave dispensary, maintains his innocence.

He says that the high-dose edibles he has given out for the past five years are part of an effort to divert residents from contaminated illicit opioids.

Magnuson wants to be able to offer the drug legally by obtaining a federal exemption from Canadian drug laws. He submitted an application to Health Canada two years ago.

The application requested the dispensary be allowed to legally possess and sell cannabis and for the 268 members of its Substitution Project, a program offered through the non-profit Serious Hope Society, to be permitted to carry up to 30 grams of the drug on their persons…