Is it legal in Canada? Drug law, cannabis and penalties

Two acts, and cannabis is no longer in the first one

The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act carries Schedules I to V. Section 4(1) provides that no person shall possess a substance included in Schedule I, II or III. Section 5(1) and 5(2) cover trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking in a substance included in Schedule I, II, III, IV or V.

Those two lists are different and the difference is not decorative. Schedule IV is in the trafficking provision and not in the possession provision, so possessing a Schedule IV substance, which is where most benzodiazepines sit, is not an offence under section 4, while trafficking in one carries up to three years under section 5(3)(c). A prohibition and a penalty are different questions and this act answers them with different lists.

The Cannabis Act took cannabis out of the drug act in 2018. The possession and trafficking figures in sections 4 and 5 do not apply to it.

How Canada reaches a substance it has never named

The act defines analogue as a substance that, in relation to a controlled substance, has a substantially similar chemical structure. That sounds like a general rule and it is not one. The definition applies only where a schedule entry calls for it, and nineteen entries in the whole act do. Phencyclidine is one of them, and the first compound listed as an example under it is ketamine.

The real class reach is a single structural definition at item 2 of Schedule III. It covers any substance with a 1-amino-2-phenylethane structure substituted at the 2' and 5' or 2' and 6' positions of the benzene ring by an alkoxy or haloalkoxy group, or substituted at two adjacent ring carbons so as to form a furan, dihydrofuran, pyran, dihydropyran or methylenedioxy group, whether or not further substituted on the ring to any extent, together with its salts and derivatives. The compounds listed under it, including 25B-NBOMe, 25C-NBOMe, 25I-NBOMe and 2C-B, are introduced by the word including, so they are examples of the class and not the limit of it.

There is no equivalent class definition for tryptamines. DMT is named with any salt thereof and nothing wider, and psilocin and psilocybin are named the same way. So a tryptamine that Canada has not named is reached by nothing, and Canada has no separate new psychoactive substances act to fall back on.

One entry carves an exception the other way. Mescaline is controlled in Schedule III with any salt thereof, but not peyote (lophophora). The cactus is excluded from the entry that controls its own active compound.

Cannabis is defined by molecular identity, not by origin

Item 1 of Schedule 1 to the Cannabis Act reaches any part of a cannabis plant, including the phytocannabinoids produced by, or found in, such a plant, regardless of whether that part has been processed or not.

Item 3 is the one that decides the hard cases. It reaches any substance that is identical to any phytocannabinoid produced by, or found in, such a plant, regardless of how the substance was obtained. A molecule made in a laboratory is cannabis in Canada if it is identical to one the plant makes.

That is a different test from the American one, which asks whether the material was derived from the plant, and from the German one, which prohibits extracting cannabinoids from the plant with an exception for CBD. Three countries, three drafting techniques, and they give different answers for a synthetic molecule that is identical to a natural one.

Schedule 2 excludes a non-viable seed, a mature stalk without any leaf, flower, seed or branch, fibre from such a stalk, the root, and derivatives made by processing those. Item 6 excludes a stalk derivative only where it does not contain an isolated or concentrated phytocannabinoid.

What each provision carries

Every substance confirmed against a primary source

81 substances have a status for Canada verified against a named statute. Each row links to the full entry, with the consequences, the prescription position and the source.

Not separately listed

Sources

• Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (S.C. 1996, c. 19), ss. 4 and 5 and Schedules I to IV Consulted 16 September 2026.
• Cannabis Act (S.C. 2018, c. 16), Schedules 1 and 2 Consulted 16 September 2026.

Statute text on this page is quoted from the copies linked above. Last verified October 9, 2026.