Addictions
“Government Heroin” documentary exposes rampant safer supply fraud
By Adam Zivo
There is no substitute for hearing testimony with your own ears and eyes.
Although there is ample evidence that Canada’s “safer supply” programs are being widely defrauded and flooding communities with opioids, advocates continue to deny that this problem exists. That’s why I premiered my new documentary this week, “Government Heroin,” which follows the story of Callum Bagnall, a 25-year-old student who purchased thousands of diverted safer supply pills in London, Ontario.
While many written accounts of safer supply fraud have been published in the Canadian media, this documentary provides, for the first time, an extended interview with a former addict who openly describes his own use of these diverted drugs. It is one thing to read these stories, and altogether another to watch and listen to them – so perhaps this will help dispel the myths that have been pushed, rather aggressively, by the harm reduction movement.
In the film, Callum explains how, three years ago, a friend informed him that drug users in the city were receiving “insane” amounts of free safer supply drugs – predominantly hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin. While these drugs are meant to wean addicts off riskier street substances, the friend explained that recipients mostly sell their safer supply at bargain prices so they can procure stronger substances, such as illicit fentanyl.
At first, Callum thought this was a joke. He had been struggling with a moderate addiction to pharmaceutical opioids – mostly oxycodone and Percocet – but, as these pills were expensive and hard to find, his drug use remained stable. The idea that the government was showering individuals with hundreds of powerful opioid pills a month, for free and with essentially no supervision, seemed “almost like a dream for a drug addict.”
But then he connected with some safer supply clients and realized that everything that he had heard was true. Fueled by a near-limitless supply of dirt-cheap opioids, Callum’s drug use rapidly spun out of control and, for two years, his life fell into utter disarray. Although he went to rehab last year, he says that his mind remains muddled by the aftereffects of these drugs to this day.
“I would have already been at the end of my road and (would) have gone to rehab at that point, if safer supply drugs weren’t so cheap and available. With the small amount of money I was making, I was able to afford hundreds of safer supply pills a week because of how cheap they were,” he says.
It was obvious to Callum that these pills were not counterfeit, given their quality and consistency and the fact that they typically came in their original, labelled prescription bottles: “Usually the people I was buying them from would try to scratch out the doctor’s name or their name. They were kind of paranoid about that. But sometimes they would just give it to me with the label unripped, not covered with marker or anything.”
Callum estimates that 90 percent of the safer supply clients he interacted with were diverting their drugs – a figure that is fairly consistent with estimates provided by former drug users I interviewed in London last year, who typically placed the diversion rate among their circles at around 80 percent.
Callum also believes that organized crime is involved in the trafficking of these drugs, and recalled how one higher-level dealer said that he would drive to northern Ontario, where safer supply is essentially unavailable, with thousands of pills stowed in his trunk to resell at a significant profit.
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While I was unable to independently verify Callum’s claim about intraprovincial trafficking, his testimony is consistent with information provided to me earlier this year by Michael Tibollo, Ontario’s Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, who said that, based on certain police reports and epidemiological data, it is clear that there is a particular problem with safer supply drugs being trafficked from London to northern Ontario.
Callum was able to corroborate the general contours of his story by providing dozens of screenshots of time-stamped text conversations between himself and his former dealers (some of which appear in the documentary), as well as excerpts of his medical records indicating that he had been diagnosed with severe opioid use disorder and had been “buying safer supply from friends.”
He also called a safer supply patient whom he used to purchase drugs from, and, while I listened in, had her confirm that she had hundreds of pills ready to sell and could introduce him to a safer supply doctor if he wanted to get on the program. A video recording of this conversation was originally meant to be included in the documentary, but was cut to mitigate risk of retaliation.
Finally, Callum’s mother, a registered nurse, appears in the documentary and recounts finding safer supply prescription bottles in her son’s room on the day he went to rehab.
As public scrutiny of safer supply has increased over the past year, providers have insisted that they are closely monitoring diversion through urine testing. Yet Callum says that the clients he interacted with would occasionally, in the process of selling their drugs, withhold a few of their pills and openly admit to him that they needed these small amounts to pass their tests.
“(They) would also take one or two pills the night before they get their prescription, so that it looks like it’s in their system. It shows up on the urine tests. So they would use that to pass the urine tests, so that they would get another script the next week,” he says in the film.
The exploitation of this loophole was confirmed by Dr. Janel Gracey, an addiction physician who treated Callum and who is also featured in my documentary. She says that “it is known in the addiction world that urine testing is not effective at catching diversion” because such tests only measure the presence of a drug, not its quantity. A safer supply patient can divert almost all of their drugs and still pass their urine tests, she says, so long as they take just one pill before giving their samples.
Gracey characterizes Canada’s current safer supply system as an underregulated “free for all” that destabilizes patients while allowing some pharmacists and physicians to reap considerable profits. “I know people on the safer supply program that have never even used fentanyl, and that’s the whole point of the program: to get them off the fentanyl. So they’re just lining up and getting a bunch of (hydromorphone), really, for no reason,” she says.
Gracey estimates that, of her 400 patients, approximately half have used, or know someone who has used, diverted safer supply drugs. She says that inexpensive hydromorphone is now “readily available on every street corner here in London,” and that dealers are “bombarding” her patients with the drug, causing many of them to “fall off the rails.”
“We are seeing younger and younger patients come in, unfortunately. Fifteen (and) 16-year-olds coming in, and they’re getting hooked on (hydromorphone) because it’s so incredibly cheap. It’s cheaper than alcohol,” she says. “We do get a few coming in that are there because of fentanyl use, but usually even the (young fentanyl users) started with (hydromorphone).”
I encourage you to watch “Government Heroin,” as the 19-minute documentary provides a more visceral and comprehensive account of the harms described here. There is no substitute for hearing testimony with your own ears and eyes.
This article was originally published in The Bureau, a Canadian media outlet that investigates the intersections of organized crime, drug trafficking and foreign interference.
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First responders say it is not overdoses that leave them feeling burned out—it is the endless cycle of calls they cannot meaningfully resolve
The soap bottle just missed his head.
Standing in the doorway of a cluttered Halifax apartment, Derek, a primary care paramedic, watched it smash against the wall.
Derek was there because the woman who threw it had called 911 again — she did so nearly every day. She said she had chest pain. But when she saw the green patch on his uniform, she erupted. Green meant he could not give her what she wanted: fentanyl.
She screamed at him to call “the red tags” — advanced care paramedics authorized to administer opioids. With none available, Derek declared the scene unsafe and left. Later that night, she called again. This time, a red-patched unit was available. She got her dose.
Derek says he was not angry at the woman, but at the system that left her trapped in addiction — and him powerless to help.
First responders across Canada say it is not overdoses that leave them feeling burned out — it is the endless cycle of calls they cannot meaningfully resolve. Understaffed, overburdened and dispatched into crises they are not equipped to fix, many feel morally and emotionally drained.
“We’re sending our first responders to try and manage what should otherwise be dealt with at structural and systemic levels,” said Nicholas Carleton, a University of Regina researcher who studies the mental health of public safety personnel.
Canadian Affairs agreed to use pseudonyms for the two frontline workers referenced in this story. Canadian Affairs also spoke with nine other first responders who agreed to speak only on background. All of these sources cited concerns about workplace retaliation for speaking out.
Moral injury
Canada’s opioid crisis is pushing frontline workers such as paramedics to the brink.
A 2024 study of 350 Quebec paramedics shows one in three have seriously considered suicide. Globally, ambulance workers have among the highest suicide rates of public service personnel.
Between 2017 and 2024, Canadian paramedics responded to nearly 240,000 suspected opioid overdoses. More than 50,000 of those were fatal.
Yet many paramedics say overdose calls are not the hardest part of the job.
“When they do come up, they’re pretty easy calls,” said Derek. Naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses, is readily available. “I can actually fix the problem,” he said. “[It’s a] bit of instant gratification, honestly.”
What drains him are the calls they cannot fix: mental health crises, child neglect and abuse, homelessness.
“The ER has a [cardiac catheterization] lab that can do surgery in minutes to fix a heart attack. But there’s nowhere I can bring the mental health patients.
“So they call. And they call. And they call.”
Thomas, a primary care paramedic in Eastern Ontario, echoes that frustration.
“The ER isn’t a good place to treat addiction,” he said. “They need intensive, long-term psychological inpatient treatment and a healthy environment and support system — first responders cannot offer that.”
That powerlessness erodes trust. Paramedics say patients with addictions often become aggressive, or stop seeking help altogether.
“We have a terrible relationship with the people in our community struggling with addiction,” Thomas said. “They know they will sit in an ER bed for a few hours while being in withdrawals and then be discharged with a waitlist or no follow-up.”
Carleton, of the University of Regina, says that reviving people repeatedly without improvement decreases morale.
“You’re resuscitating someone time and time again,” said Carleton, who is also director of the Psychological Trauma and Stress Systems Lab, a federal unit dedicated to mental health research for public safety personnel. “That can lead to compassion fatigue … and moral injury.”
Katy Kamkar, a clinical psychologist focused on first responder mental health, says moral injury arises when workers are trapped in ethically impossible situations — saving a life while knowing that person will be back in the same state tomorrow.
“Burnout is … emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment,” she said in an emailed statement. “High call volumes, lack of support or follow-up care for patients, and/or bureaucratic constraints … can increase the risk of reduced empathy, absenteeism and increased turnover.”
Kamkar says moral injury affects all branches of public safety, not just paramedics. Firefighters, who are often the first to arrive on the scene, face trauma from overdose deaths. Police report distress enforcing laws that criminalize suffering.
Understaffed and overburdened
Staffing shortages are another major stressor.
“First responders were amazing during the pandemic, but it also caused a lot of fatigue, and a lot of people left our business because of stress and violence,” said Marc-André Périard, vice president of the Paramedic Chiefs of Canada.
Nearly half of emergency medical services workers experience daily “Code Blacks,” where there are no ambulances available. Vacancy rates are climbing across emergency services. The federal government predicts paramedic shortages will persist over the coming decade, alongside moderate shortages of police and firefighters.
Unsafe work conditions are another concern. Responders enter chaotic scenes where bystanders — often fellow drug users — mistake them for police. Paramedics can face hostility from patients they just saved, says Périard.
“People are upset that they’ve been taken out of their high [when Naloxone is administered] and not realizing how close to dying they were,” he said.
Thomas says safety is undermined by vague, inconsistently enforced policies. And efforts to collect meaningful data can be hampered by a work culture that punishes reporting workplace dangers.
“If you report violence, it can come back to haunt you in performance reviews” he said.
Some hesitate to wait for police before entering volatile scenes, fearing delayed response times.
“[What] would help mitigate violence is to have management support their staff directly in … waiting for police before arriving at the scene, support paramedics in leaving an unsafe scene … and for police and the Crown to pursue cases of violence against health-care workers,” Thomas said.
“Right now, the onus is on us … [but once you enter], leaving a scene is considered patient abandonment,” he said.
Upstream solutions
Carleton says paramedics’ ability to refer patients to addiction and mental health referral networks varies widely based on their location. These networks rely on inconsistent local staffing, creating a patchwork system where people easily fall through the cracks.
“[Any] referral system butts up really quickly against the challenges our health-care system is facing,” he said. “Those infrastructures simply don’t exist at the size and scale that we need.”
Périard agrees. “There’s a lot of investment in safe injection sites, but not as much [resources] put into help[ing] these people deal with their addictions,” he said.
Until that changes, the cycle will continue.
On May 8, Alberta renewed a $1.5 million grant to support first responders’ mental health. Carleton welcomes the funding, but says it risks being futile without also addressing understaffing, excessive workloads and unsafe conditions.
“I applaud Alberta’s investment. But there need to be guardrails and protections in place, because some programs should be quickly dismissed as ineffective — but they aren’t always,” he said.
Carleton’s research found that fewer than 10 mental health programs marketed to Canadian governments — out of 300 in total — are backed up by evidence showing their effectiveness.
In his view, the answer is not complicated — but enormous.
“We’ve got to get way further upstream,” he said.
“We’re rapidly approaching more and more crisis-level challenges… with fewer and fewer [first responders], and we’re asking them to do more and more.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
News release from Alberta RCMP
Virtual Opioid Dependency Program serves vulnerable population in Red Deer
Since April 2024, your Alberta RCMP’s Community Safety and Well-being Branch (CSWB) has been piloting the Virtual Opioid Dependency Program (VODP) program in Red Deer to assist those facing opioid dependency with initial-stage intervention services. VODP is a collaboration with the Government of Alberta, Recovery Alberta, and the Alberta RCMP, and was created to help address opioid addiction across the province.
Red Deer’s VODP consists of two teams, each consisting of a police officer and a paramedic. These teams cover the communities of Red Deer, Innisfail, Blackfalds and Sylvan Lake. The goal of the program is to have frontline points of contact that can assist opioid users by getting them access to treatment, counselling, and life-saving medication.
The Alberta RCMP’s role in VODP:
- Conducting outreach in the community, on foot, by vehicle, and even UTV, and interacting with vulnerable persons and talking with them about treatment options and making VODP referrals.
- Attending calls for service in which opioid use may be a factor, such as drug poisonings, open drug use in public, social diversion calls, etc.
- Administering medication such as Suboxone and Sublocade to opioid users who are arrested and lodged in RCMP cells and voluntarily wish to participate in VODP; these medications help with withdrawal symptoms and are the primary method for treating opioid addiction. Individuals may be provided ongoing treatment while in police custody or incarceration.
- Collaborating with agencies in the treatment and addiction space to work together on client care. Red Deer’s VODP chairs a quarterly Vulnerable Populations Working Group meeting consisting of a number of local stakeholders who come together to address both client and community needs.
While accountability for criminal actions is necessary, the Alberta RCMP recognizes that opioid addiction is part of larger social and health issues that require long-term supports. Often people facing addictions are among offenders who land in a cycle of criminality. As first responders, our officers are frequently in contact with these individuals. We are ideally placed to help connect those individuals with the VODP. The Alberta RCMP helps those individuals who wish to participate in the VODP by ensuring that they have access to necessary resources and receive the medical care they need, even while they are in police custody.
Since its start, the Red Deer program has made nearly 2,500 referrals and touchpoints with individuals, discussing VODP participation and treatment options. Some successes of the program include:
- In October 2024, Red Deer VODP assessed a 35-year-old male who was arrested and in police custody. The individual was put in contact with medical care and was prescribed and administered Suboxone. The team members did not have any contact with the male again until April 2025 when the individual visited the detachment to thank the team for treating him with care and dignity while in cells, and for getting him access to treatment. The individual stated he had been sober since, saying the treatment saved his life.
- In May 2025, the VODP team worked with a 14-year-old female who was arrested on warrants and lodged in RCMP cells. She had run away from home and was located downtown using opioids. The team spoke to the girl about treatment, was referred to VODP, and was administered Sublocade to treat her addiction. During follow-up, the team received positive feedback from both the family and the attending care providers.
The VODP provides same-day medication starts, opioid treatment transition services, and ongoing opioid dependency care to people anywhere in Alberta who are living with opioid addiction. Visit vodp.ca to learn more.
“This collaboration between Alberta’s Government, Recovery Alberta and the RCMP is a powerful example of how partnerships between health and public safety can change lives. The Virtual Opioid Dependency Program can be the first step in a person’s journey to recovery,” says Alberta’s Minister of Mental Health and Addiction Rick Wilson. “By connecting people to treatment when and where they need it most, we are helping build more paths to recovery and to a healthier Alberta.”
“Part of the Alberta RCMP’s CSWB mandate is the enhancement of public safety through community partnerships,” says Supt. Holly Glassford, Detachment Commander of Red Deer RCMP. “Through VODP, we are committed to building upon community partnerships with social and health agencies, so that we can increase accessibility to supports in our city and reduce crime in Red Deer. Together we are creating a stronger, safer Alberta.”
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