Canadians living with agonizing pain slam the 'unintelligible' double standard that leaves them to suffer

Canada has long faced criticism for its ultra-permissive euthanasia system, with 4.1 percent of all deaths aided by doctors.

Now, it faces fresh outrage from woefully sick people who say it's easier to get lethal injections than it is to access the 'medicine' they need.

In two bombshell moments this month, sufferers of cognitive problems said they'd struggled to get the 'magic mushroom' cures that ease their suffering.

Meanwhile, they bemoaned how euthanasia is only getting easier to access.

First, a judge ruled that Jody Lance should be able to access psilocybin, the active ingredient in the fungus, to stop his crippling headaches.

Then, the noted veteran Kelsi Sheren went public with a call for easier access to plant therapies for traumatized ex-combatants.

'Why is it that we can access death care, but we can't access a genuine treatment that can help us become a functioning healthy, taxpaying part of society?' said Sheren.

Sheren is CEO of Brass and Unity, a jewelry firm that works to fight high suicide rates among veterans.

Psilocybin, ayahuasca, and other plants helped her get over a traumatic brain injury sustained while serving as an artillery specialist in Afghanistan, she says.

Once back in Canada, she languished with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and even contemplated suicide, she says, as conventional treatments were not helping her.

Plant medicine 'solves a significant amount of psychological issues,' she said, but the government bans these cures and leaves sufferers with 'our hands tied behind our back.'

'How do you expect us to heal?' she said.

Sheren had to hire lawyers, stump up cash and wait months to get the treatment she needed under a special program, she said.

All the while, fellow veterans like her were offered MAiD as a way to end their suffering, she adds.

Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program has gone off the rails, she says.

'We have a predatory behavior of telling individuals that they can't heal, they can't get better, and the solution to their problems is death,' she told True North.

Psilocybin has been used as a recreational drug for years, but is now showing some promise in treating a range of conditions, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and cluster headaches.

Still, it's illegal to grow, sell or possess magic mushrooms in Canada, even as they're sold in a growing number of stores in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and other hubs.

Lance, a 50-year-old Calgary resident, earlier this month won a costly and laborious legal fight to access medical grade psilocybin to treat his debilitating condition.

He suffered from rare and painful 'cluster' headaches, which attack suddenly, can recur multiple times a day and come on in groups lasting weeks, even months.

The former Alberta land surveyor was left unable to work, on long-term disability, and even contemplating MAiD due to the intense and seemingly endless pain. 

Legal and conventional therapies did not help. A neurologist suggested psilocybin in tiny, non-hallucinogenic doses, and it has provided relief.

But he could only buy it illegally, risking impurities and inconsistent and unreliable doses.

Health Canada initially refused to let him have the drug under its Special Access Program, but u-turned after a federal judge scolded the agency for its 'unreasonable' and 'unintelligible' decisions.

Lance told DailyMail.com that he was 'happy about the ruling' and called it a 'first step in the right direction.'

'This whole process has been a long and unnecessarily difficult journey,' he added.

Health Canada's assessors argued in court that Lance did not qualify for access to psilocybin because other treatments had not been ruled out.

But Lance's lawyers countered that it was easier to qualify for euthanasia in Canada than it is to access novel therapies for headache relief.

In order to qualify for MAiD, people don't have to first exhaust all available treatments options.

Lance said he hoped that his legal victory would make it easier to access psilocybin.

'I hope that going forward, others will be able to get the treatment they need a lot more easily,' he said in an email through his lawyer, Nicholas Pope.

Advocates say compounds such as psilocybin and Ayahuasca, when taken in a safe setting under the guidance of therapists, can yield powerful insights and disrupt harmful patterns of thought and behavior.

Experts are still trying to understand their therapeutic value, but psychedelics are believed to promote neural plasticity, a rewiring of the brain that affords users new perspectives on deep-seated problems.

Psychedelic therapy could help tackle the alarmingly high suicide rate among veterans across North America, advocates say.

Veterans frequently complain about the shortcomings of state care, which typically involves talk therapy to help 'wounded warrior' PTSD sufferers, as well as drugs to fight anxiety and depression.

Restrictions on the drugs are increasingly called into question in a country where assisted suicides become routine.

MAiD helped a staggering 13,102 Canadians end their lives in 2022 – an increase of 30 percent on the previous year.

Some 44,958 people have received assisted deaths since the federal MAiD law was introduced in 2016.

'It is crazy that people who served our country are being offered death rather than treatment to live,' said Alex Schadenberg, from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Canada's road to allowing euthanasia began in 2015, when its top court declared that outlawing assisted suicide deprived people of their dignity and autonomy. It gave national leaders a year to draft legislation.

The resulting 2016 law legalized both euthanasia and assisted suicide for people aged 18 and over, provided they met certain conditions:

They had to have a serious, advanced condition, disease, or disability that was causing suffering and their death was looming.

The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people.

Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially decades of life left.

Today, any adult with a serious illness, disease, or disability can seek help in dying.

Officials in February delayed plans to expand MAiD access to those with mental illnesses, kicking a decision back to 2027.

There are also efforts to make euthanasia available to 'mature minors.'

Euthanasia is legal in seven countries — Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain — plus several states in Australia.

Other jurisdictions, including a growing number of US states, allow doctor-assisted suicide — in which patients take the drug themselves, typically crushing up and drinking a lethal dose of pills prescribed by a physician.

In Canada, both options are referred to as MAiD, though more than 99.9 percent of such procedures are carried out by a doctor. The number of MAiD deaths in Canada has risen steadily by about a third each year.