London Police Raise Alarm on Safer Supply Drugs Sold on the Streets: ‘A Growing Concern’

Drugs seized during busts in London, Ont., as announced by the London Police Service on July 15, 2024. Courtesy of London Police Service

London, Ontario, was the first place in Canada to pilot a safer supply drug program, and police there are now for the first time raising the alarm about the problem of diversion, or trading the drugs for more dangerous ones.

London Police said at a July 15 press conference that people who are prescribed the safer supply of opioids are selling them, or “diverting them,” to buy higher-potency drugs like fentanyl. Concerns about diversion have previously been raised in London, but this is the first strong statement on the matter by local police.

“The diversion of safe supply is occurring in this community, and it’s impacting the people who live here,” said Chief Thai Truong. “Diverted safe supply is being resold into our community, it’s being trafficked into other communities, and it is being used as currency in exchange for fentanyl, fuelling the drug trade.”

The RCMP raised the alarm on safer supply diversion in British Columbia earlier this year, after seizing thousands of prescription pills in a series of drug busts.

B.C. has been ground zero for drug overdose and safer supply, but the drug crisis has intensified in the province, according to B.C. authorities. Provincial health officer Bonnie Henry recommended last week that safer supply be opened even wider to remove the requirement for a prescription, but the B.C. government rejected the proposal.

The safer supply program is a federal government-funded initiative that consists of providing prescribed opioids to people struggling with addiction to discourage them from getting drugs from the illicit market. According to the program’s description, this reduces the risk of overdose, poisoning, and death and helps connect people with health and social services.

Mr. Truong said the diversion of safer supply in London is no different than cocaine trafficking, as it is happening at both the street level and at higher levels of organized crime. He said London’s low cost of hydromorphone–the main safer supply drug–compared to its higher prices outside the city, makes diversion an appetizing business for criminals looking to make a profit.

In London, the street value of hydromorphone–also known by the brand name Dilaudid or by the street name “Dillies”–ranges from $2 to $5 for a tablet, Chief Truong said. Outside London, the cost can rise to as much as $30 per pill.

“In 2023, the London Police Service seized just over 30,000 tablets of hydromorphone in total, 15,000 of which consisted of Dilaudid in eight milligrams,” said Deputy Chief Paul Bastien.

“So far in 2024, we’ve seized just over 12,000 hydromorphone tablets, the overwhelming majority of which was in Dilaudid eight-milligram form.”

Deputy Chief Bastien said police have direct evidence linking Dilaudid seizures to safer supply in 26 separate cases, as well as evidence of diversion in the form of labelling or packaging.

Dr. Sharon Koivu, an addictions specialist and researcher at the London Health Sciences Centre, told The Epoch Times in an interview last year that she initially saw the benefits of safer supply, such as HIV patients being connected with treatments through the program. But she later saw the problems of diversion, including younger ages taking drugs and people moving to encampments near the pharmacy where diversion occurred.

“People who were initially the ones the program intended to help are often vulnerable and are forced into giving up much of their [prescriptions],” she said.

Scott Courtice, executive director of the London Intercommunity Health Centre–which has run the pilot program since 2016–said at the same press conference that the drug crisis is a collective responsibility to “redouble our efforts.”

“We do this work with the knowledge that we continue to lose community members to toxic drug deaths in our community,” he said. “We take the potential for diversion seriously at the health centre and have protocols to minimize the risk.”

He said the health centre’s procedures for dealing with diversion include directly contacting patients whose names appear on drugs seized by police, expelling patients found guilty of diversion from the program, and creating safety plans for patients whose supplies are stolen.

Chief Truong said one of the biggest concerns for police is that the safer supply is being diverted to buy fentanyl, a much more dangerous drug.

When asked if he continued to support the safe supply program despite evidence of diversion, he did not give a definitive answer.

“With respect to safe supply and models of health care, I rely on the experts to provide that guidance. That’s the federal government [and] the provincial government,” he said. “Our job here today is simply to share the concerns that we’re seeing in this community and the impact it has on this community.”