Police in Ontario are finally admitting that so-called “safe supply” drugs are being exchanged on the streets for fentanyl.
At a press conference Tuesday morning, London, Ont. police said “safe supply” drugs — referring to prescription opioids legalized by the federal government as part of so-called harm reduction initiatives — are being resold into the community.
“It’s being trafficked into other communities, and it is being used as currency in exchange for fentanyl, fuelling the drug trade,” said London police chief Thai Truong.
Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn has documented how addictive opioids are flooding Canadian streets in his 2023 documentary “Canada is Dying.” He told True North that “deadly and addictive” drugs are making their way to youth and vulnerable groups resulting in “windfall profits for organized crime.”
“By marketing these drugs as ‘safe’ and haphazardly dispensing them into our communities, the Trudeau-NDP coalition is getting vulnerable Canadians hooked on opioids and leading them into the destructive cycle of addiction,” Gunn told True North.
“Instead of handing out free drugs, we need to be investing in treatment and recovery and working to return our loved ones home drug free.”
Scott Courtice, the executive director of the London Intercommunity Health Centre, one of several healthcare providers responsible for prescribing medical-grade opioids, said the centre has protocols to minimize the risk of diversion, or re-selling the drugs.
Those protocols include requiring urine samples from patients to ensure prescription drugs are in their systems. If the patient is found to be taking illegal street drugs, the patient is removed from the safe supply program.
Still, London deputy chief Paul Bastien said they’ve seized 12,000 hydromorphone tablets just this year. All but 675 tablets were legalized tablets as revealed by the Dilaudid eight milligram form.
London-based addictions doctor Sharon Koivu told True North that even those 675 tablets could be from the “safe supply” system because the prescription opioids are also measured in four milligram form.
Koivu said she wasn’t surprised about the police’s announcement, but she hopes the revelation will result in a more robust response to the opioid crisis.
“As far as safe supply, I’m hoping we can recognize that it is extremely harmful to a community, we can reevaluate whether any form of this type of distributing of drugs is, in fact, safe,” she said.
In May, Ontario Premier Doug Ford asked Ottawa to stop approving new “safe supply” sites, and for Health Canada to review approved sites nationwide.
“Due to Health Canada’s siloed approval process, the province is completely in the dark about where these federally approved sites are operating and the quantity of controlled and illegal substances they dispense,” Ford wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in May. “This is frankly unacceptable.”
Ford’s request came after B.C. moved to recriminalize the use of drugs in public spaces citing public safety concerns. The pilot program introduced in January 2023 to allow adult drug users to carry up to 2.5 grams of drugs for personal use without facing criminal charges lasted just over a year.
