Addictions
London Police Chief warns parliament about “safer supply” diversion
London Police Chief Thai Truong testifies to House of Commons Standing Committee on November 26, 2024.
By Adam Zivo
“Vulnerable individuals are being targeted by criminals who exchange these prescriptions for fentanyl, exacerbating addiction and community harm,” said London Police Chief Thai Truong.
Thai Truong, the police chief of London, Ontario, testified in parliament last week that “safer supply” opioids are “obviously” being widely diverted to the black market, leading to greater profits for organized crime. His insights further illustrate that the safer supply diversion crisis is not disinformation, as many harm reduction advocates have speciously claimed.
Truong’s testimony was given to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, which is in the midst of an extended study into the opioid crisis. While the committee has heard from dozens of witnesses, Truong’s participation was particularly notable, as safer supply was first piloted in London in 2016 and the city has, since then, been a hotbed for opioid diversion.
“While the program is well intentioned, we are seeing concerning outcomes related to the diversion of safe supply medications… these diverted drugs are being resold within our community, trafficked to other jurisdictions, and even used as currency to obtain fentanyl, perpetuating the illegal drug trade,” he said in his opening speech. “Vulnerable individuals are being targeted by criminals who exchange these prescriptions for fentanyl, exacerbating addiction and community harm.”
He later clarified to committee members that these vulnerable individuals include women who are being pressured to obtain safer supply opioids for black market resale.
Safer supply programs are supposed to provide pharmaceutical-grade addictive drugs – mostly 8-mg tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin – as an alternative to riskier street substances. The programs generally supply these drugs at no cost to recipients, with almost no supervised consumption, and have a strong preference for Dilaudid, a brand of hydromorphone that is manufactured by Purdue Pharma.
Addiction experts and police leaders across Canada have reported that safer supply patients regularly divert their hydromorphone to the black market. A recent study by Dr. Brian Conway, director of Vancouver’s Infectious Disease Centre, for example, showed that a quarter of his safer supply patients diverted all of their hydromorphone, and that another large, but unknown, percentage diverted at least some of their pills.
Truong’s parliamentary testimony, which mostly rehashed information he shared in a press conference last July, further corroborated these concerns.
He noted that in 2019, the city’s police force seized 847 hydromorphone pills, of which only 75 were 8-mg Dilaudids. Seizures increased after access to safer supply expanded in 2020, and, by 2023, exploded to over 30,000 pills (a roughly 3,500 per cent increase), of which roughly half were 8-mg Dilaudids. During this period, the number of annual overdose deaths in the city also increased from 73 to 123 (a 68 per cent increase), he said.
Relatedly, Truong noted that the price of hydromorphone in London – $2-5 a pill – is now much lower than in other parts of the province.
As an increasing number of police departments across Canada have publicly acknowledged that they are seeing skyrocketing hydromorphone seizures, some safer supply advocates have claimed, without evidence, that these pills were mostly stolen from pharmacies, and not diverted by safer supply patients. Truong’s parliamentary testimony dispelled this myth: “These increases cannot be attributed to pharmacy thefts, as London has had only one pharmacy robbery since 2019.”
The police chief declined to answer repeated questions about the efficacy of safer supply, or to opine on whether the experimental program should be replaced with alternative interventions with stronger evidence bases. “I’m not here to criticize the safe supply program, but to address the serious challenges associated with its diversion,” he said, noting his own lack of medical expertise.
The chief emphasized that, while more needs to be done to stop safer supply diversion, the addiction crisis is a “complex issue” that cannot be tackled solely through law enforcement. He advocated for a “holistic” approach that integrates prevention, harm reduction and treatment, and acknowledged the importance of London’s community health and social service partners.
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In response to Truong’s testimony, NDP MP Gord Johns, an avid safer supply advocate, downplayed the importance of the diversion crisis by arguing that “people aren’t dying from a safer supply of drugs; they’re dying from fentanyl.”
While it is true that 81 per cent of overdose deaths in 2024 involved fentanyl, addiction physicians across Canada have repeatedly debunked Johns’ argument as misleading. The dangers of diverted hydromorphone is not that it directly kills users, but rather that it easily hooks individuals into addiction, leading many of them to graduate to deadly fentanyl use.
Johns previously faced criticism when, in a September health committee meeting, he seemingly used parliamentary maneuvers to reduce the speaking time of a grieving father, Greg Sword, whose daughter, Kamilah, died of drug-related causes after she and her friends got hooked on diverted hydromorphone.
There is currently no credible evidence that safer supply works. Most supporting studies simply interview safer supply patients and present their opinions as objective fact, despite significant issues with bias and reliability. Data presented in a 2024 study published in the British Medical Journal, which followed over 5,000 drug users in B.C., showed that safer supply led to no statistically significant mortality reductions once confounding factors were fully filtered out.
An impending update to Canada’s National Opioid Use Disorder Guideline, which was recently presented at a conference organized by the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine, determined that the evidence base for safer supply is “essentially low-level.” Similarly, B.C’s top doctor acknowledged earlier this year that safer supply is “not fully evidence-based.”
This article was syndicated in The Bureau, an online media publication that investigates foreign interference, organized crime, and the drug trade.
The leaked audit shows from 2022 to 2024, a staggering 22,418,000 doses of opioids were prescribed by doctors and pharmacists to approximately 5,000 clients in B.C., including fentanyl patches.
A confidential investigation by British Columbia’s Ministry of Health, Financial Operations and Audit Branch has uncovered explosive allegations of fraud, abuse, and organized crime infiltration within PharmaCare’s prescribed opioid alternatives program. Internal audit findings, obtained by The Bureau, suggest that millions of taxpayer dollars are being diverted into illicit drug trafficking networks rather than serving harm reduction efforts.
The leaked documents include photographs from vehicle searches that show collections of fentanyl patches and Dilaudid (hydromorphone) apparently packaged for resale after being stolen from the taxpayer-funded “safer supply” program. This program expanded dramatically following a federal law change implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in 2020, which broadened circumstances in which pharmacy staff could dispense opioids, according to the document’s evidence.
“Prior to March 17, 2020, only pharmacists in BC were permitted to deliver [addiction therapy treatment] drugs,” the audit says.
B.C.’s safer supply program was launched in March 2020 as a response to the opioid overdose crisis, declared in 2016. It allows people with opioid-use disorder to receive prescribed drugs to be used on-site or taken away for later use.
The Special Investigations Unit and PharmaCare Audit Intelligence team identified a disturbing link between doctors, pharmacists, assisted living residences, and organized crime, where prescription opioids meant to replace illicit drugs are instead being diverted, sold, and trafficked at scale.
“A significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients,” the document states.
It suggests that financial incentives have created a business model for organized crime, asserting that “prescribed alternatives (safe supply opioids) are trafficked provincially, nationally, and internationally,” and that “proceeds of fraud” are being used to pay incentives to doctors, pharmacists, and intermediaries.
BC Conservative critic Elenore Sturko, a former RCMP officer, began raising concerns about the program two years ago after hearing anecdotes about prescribed opioids being trafficked. She asserts that the program is a failure in public policy and insists that Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry be dismissed for having “denied and downplayed” problems as they emerged. Sturko also argues that B.C. must change its drug policy in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance linking the trafficking of fentanyl and other opioids to potential trade sanctions against Canada.
The document shows that PharmaCare’s dispensing fee loophole has incentivized pharmacies to maximize billings per patient, with some locations charging up to $11,000 per patient per year—compared to just $120 in normal cases.
Perhaps most alarming is the deep infiltration of B.C.’s safer supply program by criminal networks. The Ministry of Health report lists “Gang Members/Organized Crime” as key players in the prescription drug pipeline, which includes “Doctors, pharmacies, and assisted living residences.”
This revelation confirms long-standing fears that B.C.’s “safe supply” policy—originally designed to prevent deaths from contaminated street drugs—is instead sometimes supplying criminal organizations with pharmaceutical-grade opioids.
The leaked audit shows from 2022 to 2024, a staggering 22,418,000 doses of opioids were prescribed by doctors and pharmacists to approximately 5,000 clients in B.C., including fentanyl patches.
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Beyond organized crime’s direct involvement, pharmacies themselves have exploited regulatory gaps to generate massive profits from PharmaCare’s policies:
- Pharmacies offer kickbacks to doctors, housing staff, and medical professionals to steer patients toward specific locations.
- Financial incentives fuel fraud, with multiple investigations identifying 60+ pharmacies offering incentives to clients.
- Non-health professionals, including housing staff, are witnessing OAT (opioid agonist treatment) dosing, violating patient safety protocols.
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The Greta and Robert H. N. Ho Psychiatry and Education Centre, the HOpe Centre, a health care facility for mental illness and addiction in North Vancouver, B.C. (Dreamstime)
By Alexandra Keeler
The provinces are receiving billions in federal funds to address mental health and substance use. Why are so many spending so little?
The provinces are failing to allocate sufficient funding to addiction and mental health care services, a new report says.
The report, released Dec. 19 by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, criticizes the provinces for a “long history of … demanding maximum cash for health care from the federal government with minimum accountability.”
The alliance is a coalition of 18 prominent health organizations dedicated to improving Canada’s mental health care. Its members include the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Mental Health Association.
On average, the provinces have allocated just 16 per cent of $25 billion in federal health-care funding toward mental health and addiction services, the report says.
“Given the crisis of timely access to care for those with mental health and substance use health problems, why are so many provinces and territories investing so little new federal dollars to improve and expand access to mental health and substance use health care services?” the report asks.
However, some provinces dispute the report’s criticisms.
“The funding received from the federal government is only a small part of Alberta’s total $1.7 billion allocation towards mental health, addiction and recovery-related services,” an Alberta Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction spokesperson told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement.
“[This] is a nation leading level of investment response.”
‘Take the money and run?’
In 2023, Ottawa and the provinces committed to spend $25 billion over 10 years investing in four priority areas. These areas are mental health and substance use, family health services, health workers and backlogs, and a modernized health system.
The alliance’s report, which looks at provincial investments in years 2023 through 2026, says mental health and substance use are being given short shrift.
B.C., Manitoba and P.E.I. have allocated zero per cent of the federal funds to mental health and substance use, the report says. Three other provinces allocated 10 per cent or less.
By contrast, Alberta allocated 25 per cent, Ontario, 24 per cent, and Nova Scotia, 19 per cent, the report says.
The underspending by some provinces occurs against a backdrop of mental health care already receiving inadequate investment.
“[P]ublicly available data tells us that Canada’s mental health investments account for roughly 5% of their health budgets, which is significantly below the recommended 12% by the Royal Society of Canada,” the report says.
However, several provinces told Canadian Affairs they took issue with the report’s findings.
“Neither the Department of Health and Wellness nor Health PEI received requests to provide information to inform the [alliance’s] report,” Morgan Martin, a spokesperson for P.E.I.’s Department of Health and Wellness, told Canadian Affairs.
Martin pointed to P.E.I.’s investments in opioid replacement therapy, a mobile mental health crisis unit and school health services as some examples of the province’s commitment to providing mental health and addiction care.
But Matthew MacFarlane, Green Party MLA for P.E.I.’s Borden-Kinkora riding, says these investments have been inadequate.
“P.E.I. has seen little to no investments into acute mental health or substance use services,” he said. He criticized a lack of new detox beds, unmet promises of a new mental health hospital and long wait times.
The alliance’s report says New Brunswick has allocated just 3.2 per cent of federal funds to mental health and addiction services.
However, a New Brunswick Department of Health spokesperson Tara Chislett said the province’s allocation of $15.4 million annually from the federal funds does not reflect the additional $200 million of provincial funding that New Brunswick has committed to mental health and substance use.
In response to requests for comment, a spokesperson for the alliance said the federal funding is important, but “does not nearly move the yardsticks fast enough in terms of expanding the capacity of provincial health systems to meet the growing demand for mental health and substance use health care services.”
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‘Blaming and shaming’
The discrepancies between the report’s findings and the provinces’ claims highlight a need for standardized metrics around mental health and addiction spending.
The report calls on federal and provincial governments to develop national performance indicators for mental health and substance use services.
“At the end-of-the day you cannot manage what you do not measure,” the report reads.
It advises governments to communicate their performance to Canadians via a national dashboard.
“Dashboards are being used with increasing frequency in the health system and other sectors to summarize complex information and would be one way to effectively tell a story … to the public,” the report says.
It also urges Ottawa to introduce legislation — what it dubs the Mental Health and Substance Use Health Care For All Parity Act — to ensure equal treatment for mental and physical health within Canada’s health-care system.
This call for mental and physical health parity echoes the perspective of other health-care professionals. In a recent Canadian Affairs opinion editorial, a panel of mental health physicians argued Canada’s failure to prioritize mental health care affects millions of Canadians, leading to lower medication reimbursement rates and longer wait times.
The alliance says its call for more aggressive and transparent spending on mental health and addictions care is not intended to criticize or cast blame.
“This is not about blaming and shaming, but rather, this is about accelerating the sharing of lessons learned and the impact of innovative programs,” the report says.
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.
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Subscribe to get BTN’s latest news and analysis, or donate to our journalism fund.
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