Canada's C-51 law may outlaw 60% of natural health products; big pharma pushing to criminalize supplements

Among the changes proposed by the bill are radical alterations to key terminology, including replacing the word "drug" with "therapeutic product" throughout the Act, thereby giving the Canadian government broad-reaching powers to regulate the sale of all herbs, vitamins, supplements and other items. With this single language change, anything that is "therapeutic" automatically falls under the Food and Drug Act. This would include bottled water, blueberries, dandelion greens and essentially all plant-derived substances.

The Act also changes the definition of the word "sell" to include anyone who gives such therapeutic products to someone else. So a mother giving an herb to her child, under the proposed new language, could be arrested for engaging in the sale of unregulated, unapproved "therapeutic substances."