First, the open ended powers this grants to an agency of the government is downright scary. I find it so hard to find anyone involved in government who has any qualifications, that I just can't see how giving them blanket power to tell us what we can and cannot take is a good idea in any way. There is a major propaganda push by the Canadian government to pass this bill, complete with all sorts of reassurances of what they won't do once granted these near absolute powers. I am a student of government and in fact my degree is in political science. Government routinely misuses laws that are passed for things that are way beyond the scope of the original law. The RICO act in the US is a good example. Originally passed to combat organized crime, it no longer is used for that at all. Instead, it has been used against protest groups and business owners, among others. The problem with laws is that they can easily be manipulated to some purpose that was not the original intent. Once the power is granted, all it takes is one official who sees who it can be applied elsewhere, to move the scope of the law into areas far from the original intent. Granting draconian powers that can take your home and car away (just as is done will illegal drug dealers) because you sold something that wasn't approved is outrageous.
Second, moving medical drugs into an all encompassing, "therapeutic agents" category seems very suspicious. The drug comapnies behind this bill would love to see their side effect laden products get no more scrutiny than a milk thistle capsule. I see no other reason to change the meaning of what a drug is. Drugs should be held to an even higher standard than they are now, and who hasn't heard an ad for a prescription drug that does not include death as one of the possible side effects? Two of my asthma meds have this side effect in some people. I do not feel that a vitamin C tablet and the latest heavy painkiller should get the same testing and review process. Prescription drugs should be in a class of their own.
I could probably write for days about the political and criminal implications of this bill, but I will not. It is a subject that greatly concerns me, as it is a blatant attempt by the international pharmaceutical and medical industries to greatly restrict the access of non-traditional therapeutic products to the people. Internationally, this is known part of the Codex Alimentarius and there is a great battle going on at the international level to try to defeat this from becoming a world wide reality.
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/Codex Alimentarius was founded in 1962 by the UN to establish international free trade foods. It is jointly administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through annual and regional meetings.
Codex sets advisory standards and guidelines which nations may adopt or modify. If they modify them without special protections, nations may be found guilty of setting up trade barriers by the World Trade Organization (WTO), and be assessed crippling financial penalties. If, on the other hand, countries deviate from Codex texts by creating a scientifically strong alternative guideline or standard, and pass enabling legislation (a process we refer to as "The Codex Two Step") they are free to deviate from Codex without being found guilty of creating barriers to trade. WTO has repeatedly refused to grant Codex a unique position as THE international food code, saying it is one of several such standards.
Codex decisions are, however, often perceived as inevitable by many developing nations which are not aware of the flexibility to protect the health of their people through the Two Step Process.
Codex' decisions are heavily influenced by the desires of multinational special interest groups who send representatives to sit on national committees and as NGO delegates. Because Codex is so heavily influenced by corporate interests, its decisions are, in our opinion, often helpful to corporate well-being but strikingly detrimental to human and einviromental health.
Codex pertains to every bite - and kind of - food traded internationally and allows high doses of pesticides, veterinary drugs, synthetic hormones, contaminants, artificial sweeteners, and other dangerous compounds and processes (like mandated irradiation of food) while it forbids health claims for food.
How do those in the natural health industry view this bill?
http://healthzone.ca/health/article/428090 critics – who have been carefully monitoring the progress of the bill, which is awaiting second reading – fear changes to the act will restrict access to natural health products, delay their approval and give the health ministry unprecedented powers of enforcement.
Critics fear the ministry would be able to suspend or cancel clinical trials, disclose and demand confidential information, and impose costly fines for minor infractions – with no mention of an appeal process after such decisions. Maximum fines for an indictable offence under the act could increase from $5,000 to as much as $5 million.
"Basically, this is unbelievable granting of police state powers to essentially untrained field staff, inspectors at Health Canada, who are making life-and-death decisions based on misguided policy," said Peter Helgason, vice-president of political affairs for the Natural Health Products Protection Association. "What I don't understand is, what problem are they trying to fix with this?"
http://www.naturalnews.com/023121.htmlAt the same time that C-51 is outlawing herbs, supplements and vitamins, it would grant alarming new "enforcement" powers to the thugs enforcement agents who claim to be "protecting" the public from dangerous unapproved "therapeutic agents" like, say, dandelion greens. As explained on the www.Educate-Yourself.org website ((http://educate-yourself.org/cn/canadian...), the C-51 law would allow the Canadian government's thugs enforcement agents to:
• Raid your home or business without a warrant
• Seize your bank accounts
• Levy fines up to $5 million and a jail terms up to 2 years for merely selling an herb
• Confiscate your property, then charge you storage fees for the expense involved in storing all the products they stole from you
C-51 would even criminalize the simple drying of herbs in your kitchen to be used in an herbal product, by the way. That would now be categorized as a "controlled activity," and anyone caught engaging in such "controlled activities" would be arrested, fined and potentially jailed. Other "controlled activities" include labeling bottles, harvesting plants on a farm, collecting herbs from your back yard, or even testing herbal products on yourself! (Yes, virtually every activity involving herbs or supplements would be criminalized...)
There's more, too. C-51 is the Canadian government's "final solution" for the health products industry. It's a desperate effort to destroy this industry that's threatening the profits and viability of conventional medicine. Natural medicine works so well -- and is becoming so widely used -- that both the Canadian and American governments have decided to "nuke" the industries by passing new laws that effectively criminalize anyone selling such products. They simply cannot tolerate allowing consumers to have continued access to natural products. To do so will ultimately spell the destruction of Big Pharma and the outdated, corrupt and criminally-operated pharmaceutical industry that these criminally-operated governments are trying to protect.
I am not sure I agree with everything said here but a bill written to give massive new criminal powers to a bureaucracy that will be very difficult to challenge, is not a good thing. I do agree that if you buy a vitamin or herb, it should be what it says it is and be the dosage you're paying for, but this can be accomplished in much more benign ways.