An act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Food and Drugs Act

This bill, introduced by Mr. Tochor, aims to improve access to psilocybin and psilocin (the active compounds in "magic mushrooms") for medical treatment purposes, without changing the normal approval process for other new drugs.

It does this by amending the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act so that psilocin and psilocybin are formally classified as narcotics under the Narcotic Control Regulations. This means they would be treated similarly to other controlled substances used in medicine, such as opioids, allowing doctors and other authorized practitioners to prescribe them under the same kind of regulatory framework, rather than requiring special one-off exemptions as is currently often the case.

The bill also amends the Food and Drugs Act to make clear that psilocin and psilocybin are not included in the category of "restricted drugs" under the Food and Drug Regulations, which distinguishes them from other tightly restricted substances for regulatory purposes.

Finally, the bill creates a fast-track approval rule: if a drug company submits a request for "priority review" status for a new drug submission involving psilocin, psilocybin, or a chemically similar substance, that request is automatically deemed approved as soon as Health Canada receives it. This does not approve the drug itself for sale, but it guarantees that the application will be reviewed on a priority (faster) basis rather than going through the normal queue.

This bill reclassifies psilocin and psilocybin as narcotics under the Narcotic Control Regulations, permitting their medical use, and requires automatic approval of priority review requests for new drug submissions involving these substances.

• Reclassification — psilocin and psilocybin (and their salts) are defined as "narcotics" under the Narcotic Control Regulations, making them legally available for prescription, possession, and related activities in medical treatment contexts, including by midwives, nurse practitioners, and podiatrists under existing New Classes of Practitioners Regulations.
• Automatic priority review — any request for priority review status submitted to the Department of Health for a new drug submission involving psilocin, psilocybin, or "any substance that has a chemical structure substantially similar" to them is deemed automatically granted on the day the Department receives it, with no discretion or assessment required before that approval is deemed given.
• Scope of "substantially similar" substances — the automatic-approval provision extends to unnamed future substances chemically similar to psilocin or psilocybin, a category not defined further in the bill and left to interpretation.
• Exclusion from "restricted drug" category — psilocin and psilocybin are explicitly excluded from the definition of "restricted drug" under Part J of the Food and Drug Regulations, removing them from whatever controls apply to substances in that part.
• Oversight — the bill contains no reporting, review, or sunset mechanism; the automatic-approval rule and the reclassification take effect through the amendments themselves with no ongoing parliamentary or ministerial check specified.
• Stated purpose vs. mechanism — the bill states its purpose is to improve access without circumventing existing approval processes, but the automatic-approval provision itself operates by bypassing the discretionary step of the Department's priority-review decision for the substances named.