Fentanyl

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Regina, Saskatchewan
The federal government quietly defunded its safer supply pilot programs earlier this year after media reports, ministerial investigations and police busts showed that patients were reselling a significant portion of their hydromorphone to purchase illicit fentanyl. This fraud evidently flooded communities with diverted opioids, spurring new addictions and enriching organized crime.

The CBC clearly opposed this change and produced a film — ”The political war on safe drugs” — calling for funding to be reinstated. Their thesis was straightforward and nakedly partisan: safer supply is a wonderful, evidence-based policy and Conservative opposition to it is rooted in reactionary politics and scientific ignorance.

The most important thing to know about the documentary is that it excludes any experts who oppose safer supply. Over the past two years, dozens of addiction doctors — many of whom hold prominent leadership positions within the field — published several open letters calling for safer supply to be reformed or abolished, and spoke extensively to the media about why the strategy is disastrous. None of them are in the film. Their advocacy work is completely ignored.
This gaslighting campaign eventually shattered under the weight of contradictory evidence — so now safer supply advocates have pivoted to claiming that they, in fact, had always known that hydromorphone would be widely diverted, as the drug is too weak for fentanyl users, but were simply not listened to.

The Fifth Estate uncritically peddles this revisionist history and, in an Orwellian twist, lionizes the safer supply movement for “warning” policymakers about a problem that it had, in fact, tried to conceal, or dismiss. The harm reduction activists — and their CBC stenographers — conclude that the only solution is to expand safer supply, offer stronger substances and even legalize all hard drugs.

In a particularly shocking scene, one of Canada’s leading safer supply prescribers, Christy Sutherland, recounts how she stopped offering hydromorphone upon realizing that at least 40 per cent of her patients were reselling the drug. After discontinuation, she had to temporarily flee Vancouver because violent patients threatened her life.
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Regina, Saskatchewan
British Columbia recently mandated that, starting from the end of this month, most “safer supply” drugs must be consumed under medical supervision in an effort to keep them from being diverted to the black market. While this reform is laudable and will help keep dangerous opioids off Canadian streets, it is reprehensible that the province dragged its feet for years here.🤔

Although the BC NDP aggressively championed safer supply throughout the 2010s and 2020s, it eventually backpedalled after media reports showed that many recipients sell their free hydromorphone to purchase illicit street fentanyl, and that this floods communities with diverted opioids, fuelling addiction.

This course-correction was glacial and grudging, though. When the National Post, citing over a dozen addiction doctors across Canada, first reported on widespread safer supply diversion in mid-2023, the BC NDP insisted that the program was not contributing to addictions or deaths and that diverted hydromorphone seizures were not increasing.

Later that year, dozens of addiction doctors signed two public letters warning about safer supply diversion and begging for mandatory witnessed consumption. B.C.’s top doctor, Bonnie Henry, also produced a report which confirmed, through extensive consultation with the province’s doctors and addicts, that safer supply diversion is a “common occurrence.”

Earlier this month, the province released new guidelines — which come into effect on Dec. 30 — mandating witnessed consumption for all safer supply patients. These guidelines still allow unwitnessed doses in exceptional circumstances, but qualifying criteria now match those used for traditional addiction medications such as methadone,  which means that they are clearer and stricter than before.

While this is an improvement, it is still possible that some clinicians will creatively interpret these criteria to prescribe unwitnessed safer supply opioids to diversion-prone patients. If there is a lesson to be learned from the past few years, it is that many safer supply prescribers cannot be trusted to practice responsibly — many of them even claim that opioid diversion is a good thing.
 
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Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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British Columbia recently mandated that, starting from the end of this month, most “safer supply” drugs must be consumed under medical supervision in an effort to keep them from being diverted to the black market. While this reform is laudable and will help keep dangerous opioids off Canadian streets, it is reprehensible that the province dragged its feet for years here.🤔

Although the BC NDP aggressively championed safer supply throughout the 2010s and 2020s, it eventually backpedalled after media reports showed that many recipients sell their free hydromorphone to purchase illicit street fentanyl, and that this floods communities with diverted opioids, fuelling addiction.

This course-correction was glacial and grudging, though. When the National Post, citing over a dozen addiction doctors across Canada, first reported on widespread safer supply diversion in mid-2023, the BC NDP insisted that the program was not contributing to addictions or deaths and that diverted hydromorphone seizures were not increasing.

Later that year, dozens of addiction doctors signed two public letters warning about safer supply diversion and begging for mandatory witnessed consumption. B.C.’s top doctor, Bonnie Henry, also produced a report which confirmed, through extensive consultation with the province’s doctors and addicts, that safer supply diversion is a “common occurrence.”

Earlier this month, the province released new guidelines — which come into effect on Dec. 30 — mandating witnessed consumption for all safer supply patients. These guidelines still allow unwitnessed doses in exceptional circumstances, but qualifying criteria now match those used for traditional addiction medications such as methadone,  which means that they are clearer and stricter than before.

While this is an improvement, it is still possible that some clinicians will creatively interpret these criteria to prescribe unwitnessed safer supply opioids to diversion-prone patients. If there is a lesson to be learned from the past few years, it is that many safer supply prescribers cannot be trusted to practice responsibly — many of them even claim that opioid diversion is a good thing.
Apparently, the government's definition of "compassion" is different from its original interpretation.
 
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pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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Not necessarily. I'd say it's a "convenience" for some people, including medical professionals!!
And the system , however the point I was trying to make is that despite all the interventions and harm reduction addicts are still dying off in alarming numbers .
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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MAID is compassion !
My experience with it is positive. It needs to be fairly tightly controlled, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all.
Wasn’t really making a point about Maid but the dying addicts . That said I agree with you mostly .
true that!
The more MAID the more organs that can be harvested for those in need.

Naloxone should be banned. People on fentanyl hate life and they get high to avoid living it. Give them what they want.

Keeping them alive only benefits the Addiction and Homeless Industrial Complex.
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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The more MAID the more organs that can be harvested for those in need.

Naloxone should be banned. People on fentanyl hate life and they get high to avoid living it. Give them what they want.

Keeping them alive only benefits the Addiction and Homeless Industrial Complex.
Yup .
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
32,798
11,817
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Regina, Saskatchewan
WASHINGTON — The United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest threat assessment says fentanyl “super laboratories” in Canada are a growing source of concern — after U.S. President Donald Trump used cross-border traffic in the deadly drug to justify hitting imports of Canadian goods with tariffs.
"There is virtually no fentanyl getting smuggled into the United States from Canada, especially when you compare it to what's coming in from Mexico," Tim Thayer is a marine interdiction agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. "Nevertheless Canada does have some serious issues with staffing [at our border] — we don't have enough officers.
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In 2025, U.S. border officials in the Detroit sector seized more than 4,200 kilograms of illegal drugs, including nearly 15 kilograms of fentanyl, according to statistics provided by CBP. But the statistics don't reveal the direction the drugs were travelling. "It's really not that big of a problem for inbound," said Lavarah Miller, a CBP watch commander on duty when CBC News toured a brand new American port of entry facility at the newly opened Gordie Howe International Bridge.

"Firearms, for sure. But also, the United States is the middle ground for drugs coming up into our country from Mexico and South America," said Kelly Sundberg, a professor of criminology at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

(The total amount of fentanyl seized by U.S. officials so far this year at the Canadian border is approximately three kilograms. At the Mexican border, it's approximately 3,221 kilograms)

"A lot of the stuff that we actually get, we get a lot of it going out." And guns, too, are travelling north, recent statistics show. In 2024, 87 per cent of the guns recovered in crimes in Ontario were traced back to the U.S, according to figures compiled by Ontario Provincial Police. In Toronto, police say 88 per cent of guns recovered were illegally smuggled into the country🤫.
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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Edmonton
Any information on the fentanyl labs in B.C.? We heard about it once, but nothing since, at least I haven't. There's supposed to be criminal gangs & cartels involved. So???? What's happened to them?
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
6,739
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Edmonton
Does Canada have a fentanyl issue & if so, where?

Short answer: Yes — Canada has a major fentanyl problem, and it is most severe in Western Canada, especially British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.

🇨🇦 Where fentanyl harms are highest​

The most recent national data (2025–2026) show that 78% of all opioid toxicity deaths — most of which involve fentanyl or fentanyl analogues — occur in:
  • British Columbia
  • Alberta
  • Ontario

These provinces have the most toxic unregulated drug supply, the highest rates of accidental poisonings, and the largest number of EMS overdose response
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
32,798
11,817
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Yes, Canada definitely has a fentanyl problem, but it doesn’t appear to have a problem with large quantities crossing into the US…but it does have an issue with quantities crossing from the US into Canada, on top of domestic production, being used domestically in Canada from the sounds of it.
(The total amount of fentanyl seized by U.S. officials so far this year at the Canadian border is approximately three kilograms. At the Mexican border, it's approximately 3,221 kilograms)
In 2025, U.S. border officials in the Detroit sector seized more than 4,200 kilograms of illegal drugs, including nearly 15 kilograms of fentanyl, according to statistics provided by CBP. But the statistics don't reveal the direction the drugs were travelling.
Puts the illegal (according to the US courts) fentanyl tariff by Trump on Canada in perspective.