Former federal cabinet minister Tony Clement, longtime aggressive opponent of harm reduction, took a position as senior advisor to Red Light Holland, a company that produces and sells “a premium brand of magic truffles” to Netherlands’ REC market.
CBC Montreal, CMAJ, CBC Technology, the Star, The Tyee, iPolitics, Globe NewsWire
- Other high-profile names have joined Red Light Holland, including comedian Russell Peters (chief creative officer), Peace Naturals founder Ann Barnes (director), and ousted Canopy co-CEO Bruce Linton (chair of the advisory board).
- As health minister under prime minister Stephen Harper, Clement announced “the party is over” for illicit drug users, launching the National Anti-Drug Strategy in 2007, which introduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences but offered zero funding for harm reduction or alcohol policies, while ignoring researchers who claimed previous Conservative anti-drug initiatives had failed.
CBC News/Web Archive, Stop the Drug War, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, CBC News - In 2018, Clement resigned from parliament after he was extorted in a sexting scandal. He sent sexually explicit images to two West African men posing as a woman online.
National Post
Predictably, many people accused Tony Clement of being a hypocrite whose actions left people to die.
Twitter–@infosecivy, @jerallingham, @danalarsen, @garthmullins, @gilliankolla
- Disclosure: I have volunteered with homeless people and IV drug users for over a decade, and thus I don’t have a kind word to say about Tony Clement, other than that he has blocked me on Twitter.
