MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER: Why we have temporarily closed

MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER, DANA LARSEN:

In December 2025 I was forced to temporarily shut down both of our Get Your Drugs Tested locations in Vancouver, and to close our mail-in service as well. After launching this project in 2019 and serving our community for six years, having to suddenly close was not where I wanted us to be.

In mid-2025 I discovered that senior managers of The Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary had been misappropriating funds and hiding severe financial problems from me. Behind my back they had put us into crushing debt, misled me about our true financial situation, and undermined years of our work. As the founder and Director of the Society I was saddled with trying to pay off a mountain of debts that were incurred without my knowledge or consent.

These revelations came on the heels of expensive and challenging police raids against our Cannabis Dispensary in January 2025, and against our Mushroom Dispensary in November 2024. Unfortunately the result of all this was sudden layoffs in December for many good and dedicated people, as I was forced to close down, restructure and regain our financial footing.

Since then I have been working to solve these problems and pay off debts. Although we’re not completely out of the hole yet, we are now past the crisis point, and are in a position to rebuild, restaff and re-open this important drug-checking service.

Get Your Drugs Tested has never received any funding from any level of government. This is a project I started in 2019 because I saw a need and wanted to help keep the drug-using community safe. All of the money to provide this free service has come from the revenues generated by the two non-profit businesses I created: The Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary and The Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary, along with some public donations.

I am so sorry about this situation. I am sad that the many people who had come to rely on Get Your Drugs Tested have been without our services for these past few months. I regret that I allowed things to get like this without making the necessary management changes much sooner. I am deeply sorry for our dedicated staff who were thrown out of work on very short notice. I know some of them are angry with me, and I sympathize with their frustration. I took these actions because we were in a deep financial crisis, and I believed this was the only way to preserve and grow these important projects in the long term.

I now look forward to re-opening as soon as possible, and getting back to work providing safe, free access to our community drug-checking services.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please check back for more updates.

– DANA LARSEN