Kash Heed, Lucy Scientific and Richmond's Supervised Consumption Site Motion

Editor's note
This article only compiles records that can be publicly verified. Available public evidence does not show that Lucy Scientific ever asked, paid or rewarded Heed to advance Richmond's SCS motion. Heed has expressly denied any connection between the two and said his consulting contract with Lucy ended on November 16, 2023. No court or regulatory body has found that Heed had a conflict of interest in the legal sense on this matter.
Written questions were sent to Heed by email on September 14, 2026, at both his City of Richmond and campaign addresses, asking for a response by September 19. No response had been received as of publication on September 18. This page will be updated with any reply.

Short answers

• Did Kash Heed work for Lucy Scientific? Lucy Scientific announced on March 29, 2023 that Heed, then a Richmond city councillor, had joined the company as a Special Advisor. Heed says the consulting contract ended on November 16, 2023.
• Did Lucy Scientific pay Heed to push Richmond's supervised consumption site (SCS)? No public document shows that. Heed denies any connection, and the compensation terms of his Lucy contract have not been made public.
• Who proposed Richmond's SCS motion? Councillors Laura Gillanders and Kash Heed (notice given January 30, 2024). Council voted 7–2 on February 13, 2024 to study it. Vancouver Coastal Health said on February 14 it would not build a stand-alone site.
• Is Kash Heed running for mayor of Richmond? Yes. He announced in October 2025 and appears in the City's candidate list for the October 17, 2026 election. See his candidate profile.

In February 2024, Richmond City Council was consumed by a heated dispute over a supervised consumption site (SCS) motion — the facility commonly called a safe injection site. Sing Tao reported that nearly 1,000 people protested outside City Hall on the first night, and more than 120 registered to speak. On February 13, Council voted 7–2 to direct staff to study the practicability of an SCS within the Richmond General Hospital precinct. The motion was brought jointly by Councillors Laura Gillanders and Kash Heed.

The next day, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) announced it would not establish a stand-alone SCS in Richmond, which effectively ended the matter. One question remained, however: What business relationships had Heed had with companies directly affected by drug policy, and how much did those relationships overlap in time with his drug-policy work on Council?

Checking twenty years of public records item by item produces the following facts.

1. Heed supported harm reduction long before entering the industry

On May 29, 2008, during a House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (HESA) discussion of Insite, Liberal MP Hedy Fry cited Heed's position. She described him as the former commander in charge of drug policy for the Vancouver Police Department who "fully supports Insite's results," and said he believed Insite had achieved its goals of reducing public harm and improving public order. (This is Fry's characterization, not Heed's own testimony.)

In October 2012, Heed, then a BC MLA, publicly joined the grassroots campaign calling for marijuana legalization (CTV/Canadian Press). In 2014 he told Global News he had been advocating for changes to how marijuana is policed for 13 years.

A 2018 conference abstract still described him as "a long-time drug policy reform advocate."

Conclusion: Heed's drug-policy reform positions predate his business relationships. It cannot be said that companies "created" his positions.

2. After leaving government, drug policy became part of his consulting business

Heed was an MLA from 2009 to 2013 and did not seek re-election in 2013.

Paragraph 64 of his final written submissions to the Cullen Commission (BC's money-laundering inquiry) states:

"Mr. Heed formed a consulting company that provided, in part, consulting services advising companies on drug policies."

In May 2014, Global News and CBC reported that Heed had announced he would advise legal medical-marijuana businesses in BC and Ontario on policy and security.

3. National Green BioMed: consulting fees, a regulatory-milestone bonus and proposed options

The National Green BioMed Ltd. (NGB) Offering Memorandum (dated February 10, 2016), on file with the BC Securities Commission (BCSC), records a consulting agreement between the company and Heed Consultants Ltd. NGB was then headquartered in Richmond, and its chairman was former federal cabinet minister Herb Dhaliwal. Separately, Vice reported in 2018 that Kash Heed was a "strategic consultant" with NGB.

Notes:

• These records show a compensation structure tied to regulatory progress. They do not show that Heed exerted any influence on Health Canada.
• There is no public evidence that these options were ultimately granted or exercised.

A related record: in June 2015, NGB committed $1 million to UBC to fund medical-cannabis research by M-J Milloy (UBC Faculty of Medicine announcement). Three years later, Heed and Milloy co-presented at an international conference (see Section 5).

4. 2018: GrowX markets Heed's policy insight

On May 7, 2018, Yuntone Capital announced its acquisition of GrowX Global. The announcement listed Kash Heed as a Proposed Director of the resulting issuer and stated:

"Mr. Kash Heed provides GrowX with valuable insight into the way government is proceeding with legalization."

(Whether the transaction closed and whether Heed actually became a director has not been verified.)

5. 2018: Commercial cannabis meets opioid-crisis harm reduction

The CannX 2018 conference abstracts published in Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids include a presentation titled "Rationale to Evaluate Community-Led Interventions Employing Cannabis as Harm Reduction During the Opioid Overdose Crisis," by M-J Milloy (BC Centre on Substance Use) and K. Heed (GrowX Global).

The abstract describes Heed as GrowX's founder and chief operating officer, who would "explain his company's support for this research project."

6. 2022: Elected to Council, publicly calls for "a suite of safe supply"

Heed was elected to Richmond City Council in October 2022.

On December 14, 2022, more than three months before Lucy hired him, he told CityNews:

"What I'm talking about is a suite of safe supply."

The report paraphrased him as saying that enforcement must be accompanied by treatment, a safer drug supply (including addiction medicine and access to psychedelics) and recovery options.

Conclusion: Heed's safe-supply position also predates his relationship with Lucy.

7. Lucy Scientific: a controlled-substances licence amendment and a safer-supply market thesis

Lucy Scientific Discovery (Nasdaq: LSDI) was an early-stage psychedelics manufacturer holding a Health Canada dealer's licence.

• February 16, 2023: Lucy issued a press release (filed with the SEC as an 8-K exhibit) whose headline said the expansion was an effort to "Supply Harm Reduction Programs Around the World." The body said it had applied to add "cocaine and heroin, among others" to its licence and "hopes to supply safe access programs in the future."
• The full list appears in the company's subsequent 10-Q and 10-K and covers 15 substances: coca leaves, ketamine, methamphetamine, methadone, buprenorphine, heroin, opium, thebaine, cocaine, fentanyl, hydromorphone, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine and codeine. This was only an application. There is no public evidence it was approved.
• Lucy's SEC filings state that "Canadian 'safer supply programs' and Special Access Program will expand the market for our products within Canada." Two points matter:
• The same passage already appeared in its January 2022 S-1 registration statement, before Heed was elected or hired;
• The same filings acknowledge that safer-supply programs have not been used for psychedelics and "may never be used for this purpose."
• March 17, 2023: Lucy announced a partnership with Pramantha Group to pursue government contracts and grants to expand domestic drug-manufacturing capacity in response to shortages of essential medications. The announcement did not mention harm reduction or safe supply.

8. March 29, 2023: Lucy hires sitting councillor Heed as Special Advisor

Lucy's press release noted that Heed had been elected to Richmond City Council in 2022 and said that in his new role he would:

"help the company successfully navigate Canada's rapidly evolving drug policy landscape and growing budget focused on mental health and safe-supply programs."

In the same release, Heed said Lucy could be "a reliable partner for public health agencies seeking to deliver safe treatment solutions for the overdose crisis," and that government investment of billions in mental-health and addiction services "will foster many new research and treatment partnerships."

What can be confirmed: From March 29, 2023, Heed was simultaneously a Richmond city councillor and Lucy's Special Advisor. Lucy's public description of the role referred to Canadian drug policy and to budgets for mental-health and safe-supply programs.

What remains unknown: his compensation, whether shares or options were involved, and what work he actually did. Lucy's SEC filings never mention Heed (an EDGAR full-text search returns no results).

9. Local drug and addiction matters Heed took part in while the advisory relationship existed

Based on Lucy's announcement date and the termination date Heed provided, the following activities took place while the advisory relationship he described was in effect. There is no evidence that Lucy was involved in, or aware of, any of them.

• June 19, 2023: Heed attended the General Purposes Committee, where VCH's Dr. Meena Dawar and Karen Barclay presented on toxic-drug deaths in Richmond, overdose-related emergency visits, decriminalization, and the expansion of mental-health and substance-use services. The minutes record no questions and answers.
• June 2023: Richmond News (June 28) reported that Heed asked former drug user Guy Felicella, a peer clinical advisor with the BC Centre on Substance Use, to "help educate the City of Richmond on addictions and homelessness."
• Summer 2023: Heed later told Global News, "the conversation we had with the medical doctor last summer was quite the opposite, where in fact she said we could look at it." The doctor's identity, the date and the content of the conversation are not on the public record.
• Notice given September 30, 2023; considered October 16: Heed moved a "Homeless Crisis" motion asking staff to research action plans and to recommend a formal position on "secure care for the acute drug addicted and/or persons with critical mental illness that are homeless." Secure care is an involuntary or secure-treatment approach; it is not harm reduction.

10. November 2023: Lucy surrenders its licence; Heed says his contract ended

• In a 10-Q, Lucy disclosed that in November 2023 it surrendered its controlled-drugs dealer's licence "to better manage our costs" (effective January 2024) and vacated its leased warehouse. The company said it might reapply if the regulatory landscape provided "a clearer path to meaningful revenues."
• Richmond News (February 20, 2024) reported that Heed showed the paper a letter from Lucy's CEO indicating that the consulting contract ended on November 16, 2023. Heed also said Lucy no longer operated in Canada. Neither the contract nor the termination letter has been made public.
• On November 24, 2023, Heed gave notice of a motion to make naloxone kits available in all civic buildings. The committee passed it on December 4, and Council adopted it on consent on December 11.

11. January–February 2024: The SCS motion

• January 30: Gillanders and Heed gave joint notice of a motion directing staff to analyze the practicability of an SCS within the Richmond General Hospital precinct, work with VCH and the provincial and federal governments, and establish a task force, public education, monitoring and evaluation, and a community-input process. The motion text does not mention safe supply, drug supply or any company.
• February 5: The General Purposes Committee passed it 8–1 (Au opposed). A resident read a letter from Guy Felicella supporting an SCS.
• February 12–13: Council heard delegations over two evenings.
• Sing Tao reported that one speaker raised Heed's past role with Lucy. Heed replied on the spot that the information was incorrect and said he did not rule out legal action.
• Heed later told Richmond News he had "clarified it twice" at Council and that Lucy "had absolutely nothing to do with this motion."
• A motion to table the item was defeated, with Heed voting against tabling. The main motion passed 7–2 on February 13 (Au and Loo opposed).
• The minutes record no declaration of conflict or recusal by Heed. According to reports, the contract had ended about two and a half months before the motion was introduced. Whether a statutory conflict of interest existed depends on whether he still held a continuing financial interest at the time of the vote (for example shares, options or deferred compensation). No public record answers that question.

12. Outcome: VCH says no, and FOI records show the Premier's Office intervened

• February 14: VCH said a stand-alone SCS "is not the most appropriate service for those at risk of overdose in Richmond."
• February 20: The City announced Richmond would not have a stand-alone SCS and explained:
• Council cannot open or operate an SCS; only VCH or an agency approved by Health Canada can do so;
• An SCS lets people use their own drugs under health-professional supervision, and "They do not hand out drugs to users."

Emails obtained by Glacier Media through freedom-of-information requests in May 2024 show:

• On February 6, VCH Medical Health Officer Dawar wrote internally that the committee motion "is a great opportunity to open the door for eOPS in Richmond";
• On February 9, VCH's deputy chief medical health officer said VCH was not recommending an SCS open to the public within the hospital, and would instead recommend overdose-prevention services at community sites already serving the at-risk population;
• On the morning of February 13, a provincial communications director relayed that "the Premier's Office has directed us to direct VCH to issue a statement to quell some of the misinformation."

Heed cited these records to accuse the provincial government of interfering for electoral reasons. Premier Eby responded that the community had been deeply divided and that health officials had decided not to proceed.

One point needs to be clear: an SCS is not safe supply. There is no evidence for claims that "Lucy could supply drugs to a Richmond SCS," and under the official definition an SCS does not hand out drugs. Lucy surrendered its licence in November 2023 and was delisted from Nasdaq in July 2024.

13. What can and cannot be confirmed

Can be confirmed

1. Heed's positions on harm reduction, cannabis reform and safe supply all predate his relationship with Lucy.
2. After leaving government, he advised companies on drug policy through a consulting company (his own submission to the Cullen Commission).
3. NGB's securities filing shows Heed Consultants Ltd. received consulting fees, a bonus tied to a regulatory milestone, and proposed options whose terms were not finalized.
4. GrowX, in a public transaction announcement, presented Heed's insight into legalization policy as an asset.
5. Lucy publicly hired Heed while he was a sitting councillor and linked the role to Canadian drug policy and to budgets for mental-health and safe-supply programs.
6. While the advisory relationship he described was in effect, he took part as a councillor in local matters involving addiction, homelessness and VCH.
7. About two and a half months after the contract reportedly ended, he co-sponsored the SCS motion and voted on it, with no recusal recorded in the minutes.

Cannot be confirmed

• The compensation, shares, options or scope of work under the Lucy–Heed contract;
• Whether Heed contacted any government or health body on Lucy's behalf;
• Who the doctor in the summer-2023 conversation was, or what was said;
• Whether he still held Lucy shares or any other financial interest after the contract ended;
• Whether Lucy ever received a safe-supply contract from any government (there is no public evidence it did).

Any claim that "Lucy paid Heed to push for an SCS" goes beyond the available evidence. Still, Heed is now running for mayor. His long, documented business relationships in the drug-policy field, and the way they overlapped in time with public office, are public information voters can weigh when considering this controversy. The most direct ways to resolve the open questions would be for Heed to disclose the terms of the Lucy contract, and to inspect the financial disclosure statements he has filed under the Financial Disclosure Act, which are open to public inspection.

Primary Sources

How each claim was checked: the evidence review →