'No question' safe-supply drugs are being diverted: Vancouver Police Department
Opposition critics said this admission flies in the face of statements made by B.C.'s public safety minister that there's no evidence of widespread diversion of safer-supply drugs
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The deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department told a House of Commons committee this week that 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures in B.C. had been diverted from “safe supply” drugs.
The comments set off criticism by B.C. United MLAs and the federal Conservatives, who said it was evidence of the unintended consequences of the province’s prescription opioid program, which aims to reduce toxic drug deaths. They accused the B.C. NDP government and Ottawa of ignoring the public safety implications of a “taxpayer-funded drug trafficking” program.
Appearing before the House of Commons health committee on Monday, Fiona Wilson, who is also president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police, said 20 per cent of the patients who are prescribed hydromorphone receive the opioid through the government’s safer supply program.
“We also know that about 50 per cent of the pills that (police) come across that are hydromorphone can indeed be attributed to safe supply,” Wilson said. “And, you know, that’s just in recognition of the fact that someone who’s on a bonafide safe supply program has a more regular significant supply of hydromorphone.”
Wilson said the bigger concern, however, is organized crime groups producing counterfeit hydromorphone, which looks exactly like the real thing but “could absolutely be deadly.”
Wilson also raised concerns about the B.C. NDP’s decriminalization program, saying it has tied the hands of police to respond to problematic drug use both in public and inside B.C. hospitals.
“In the wake of decriminalization, there are many of those locations where we have absolutely no authority to address that problematic drug use,” Wilson said. For example, if someone smokes crack cocaine on a beach next to a family, “it’s not a police matter,” she said.
Wilson said the same goes for drug use inside hospitals, which has become a flashpoint in recent weeks as nurses speak out about their exposure to toxic drug smoke in the workplace.
“There is nothing police can do about it,” Wilson said. “These are all things that we raised prior to decriminalization taking effect that we don’t feel were adequately addressed.”
Wilson added the association supports the principle of “not trying to arrest ourselves out of this crisis,” which she said is “not going to save lives.” She was not available for an interview Tuesday.
B.C. United mental health and addictions critic Elenore Sturko and several opposition MLAs have raised concerns about people who receive prescription opioid alternatives selling those pills to buy more-potent street drugs. As a result, those safe supply drugs are falling into the hands of organized crime groups who sell them for as little as $1 a pill, with youth often the intended target.
Prince George RCMP said last month that a recent seizure of thousands of pills included morphine and hydromorphone, two drugs that are part of B.C.’s safe supply program.
Despite that, provincial Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has repeatedly said there is no evidence of widespread diversion of safer-supply drugs.
Sturko said that denial, especially in the face of Wilson’s statement, amounts to either “wilful blindness … or incompetence.”
The B.C. NDP’s failure to put adequate safeguards in place — such as requiring physicians to witness the person taking the prescription opioids — “creates a situation where people could start using their hydromorphone as a currency to obtain illicit substances,” Sturko said. “If people are not taking the (opioid) alternatives, and they’re simply being trafficked, it’s not helping the intended person, and it’s also creating this black market for drug use.”
In what appears to be a response to posts on X from Sturko and federal Conservative addictions critic, Laila Goodridge, the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police wrote on X: “Coroner data is clear — seven people a day in B.C. are dying from toxic illicit drugs (primarily fentanyl), NOT diverted prescription medication. We need to focus on what is causing the most harm.”
Sturko called that statement “disturbing,” saying it ignores the “fact that prescriptions are potentially contributing to death — not necessarily in the moment but in the pathway of addiction that leads to death.”
Asked about the issue of diversion during an unrelated news conference on Tuesday, Premier David Eby said it is the first time he has heard the data. He said the government is following up with the Vancouver Police Department to get more information “to identify where it’s being diverted so that we can minimize diversion.”
“If we can identify things with the VPD based on what they’re seeing in the streets, we want to do it,” Eby said. “Because we don’t want those drugs anywhere other than being in the hands of the person they were prescribed to under the supervision of a medical professional.”
Eby said the government is implementing a number of recommendations to reduce diversion following a report from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, which found “some diversion is occurring.” The report did not analyze the impacts of diversion, but said “diversion to people who would otherwise not use unregulated drugs is harmful.”
Eby said both the province’s safe supply program and decriminalization program must “respond and evolve to the concerns of British Columbians and what we’re seeing in communities.”
“The piece that I’m really concerned about, and I think British Columbians are concerned about, is public drug use, where police feel constrained that they don’t have the tools they need to respond to that public drug use when it’s causing a risk to the general public,” he said.
That is why, he said, the B.C. NDP brought in a law last November which gives police the power to stop people from using drugs in certain public places, including sports fields, beaches or skate parks and within six metres of building entrances. It was already illegal to use drugs around schools, splash pads, and playgrounds.
That law has been blocked from coming into effect after a Dec. 29 ruling from B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson who sided with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association which argued that banning drug use in most public spaces would push people into back alleys where they are more likely to overdose and die alone.
“We need to have a tool for police to be able to ensure that public safety,” Eby said. “I have the same concerns that many British Columbians do about public drug use in inappropriate areas, (like) drug use in hospitals. Unfortunately the court’s decision has been a challenge for us.”
LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
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