Health Canada Is Paying $1.5M for Anti-Drug Ads Everyone Thinks Are a Shot at Justin Trudeau

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

Timing, as all our exes would say, is everything. And so it is for the federal government's decision to spend $1.5 million to run its previously-used anti-drugs ads on TV and online this summer.

Health Canada began re-running the ads—which have long been criticized as a political shot against Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau—earlier this week. The ads will stop airing in August, weeks before a federal election is expected to be called.

One such ad is seemingly aimed at parents, with an ominous sounding narrator saying weed is much stronger than it was 30 years ago and that "smoking marijuana can seriously harm a teen's developing brain." Admittedly, the CGI visuals are pretty good by government standards, though.

"Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug among Canadian youth, who are especially vulnerable to the health effects of marijuana use. Smoking marijuana damages teens' developing brains and is harmful to a person's overall health," Health Minister Rona Ambrose said in a statement about the ad campaign's relaunch. It might just be timing, but it seems to be worth noting that the last four statements on Health Canada's news page are all about drug abuse, which is hardly the only health issue facing our country.

No one is really arguing that weed is good for teens (stay in school, kids!) but the original ad campaign—coinciding closely with Tory ads against Trudeau's legalization plan—raised eyebrows among Canada's medical community, while three separate organizations refused to endorse Health Canada's ads.

"The educational campaign has now become a political football on Canada's marijuana policy and for this reason the CFPC, CMA, and Royal College will not be participating," the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Canadian Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, said last year in a joint statement.

"We did not, and do not, support or endorse any political messaging or political advertising on this issue."

In an email to VICE, Minister Ambrose's office denied the ads are political.

"Educating youth and parents on negative effects of smoking marijuana is not about politics. In fact, governments have been raising awareness of the health risks of smoking and drugs for many years. It is the responsible thing to do for a government," spokesperson Michael Bolkenius said.

The Conservatives' various ads against Trudeau, some which suggested the Liberal leader wanted to make pot easier to access for kids, were greeted with a bit of an eye-roll. Even the brandy-sippers at the National Post called the ad campaign "an embarrassment."

The previous 12-week anti-drug campaign by the federal government, which ended in early 2015, cost taxpayers $7 million. That was more than Health Canada spent in the entire 2013-2014 fiscal year advertising its programs or telling Canadians to do healthy things like immunize your kids or whatnot.

The ads come not long after an exclusive poll provided to VICE show that the legalization of pot—the one policy pledge everyone actually remembers from Trudeau—is a vote winner for the Liberals, at least among the hard-to-give-a-shit youth demographic.

Possession charges have risen 40 percent since the Conservatives took office in 2006. The next federal election is set for October.

Ambrose's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

With files from Justin Ling.

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