New Documentary ‘Government Heroin’ Tells Story of Ontario Student Hooked on Safe Supply Drugs

Methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine from a safe supply site are displayed in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, on Aug. 31, 2021. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

The story of a 25-year-old Ontario student who became addicted to hydromorphone–a potent opioid–after getting access to diverted government-funded “safer supply” pills is the subject of a new documentary released this week.

The film, “Government Heroin,” was produced by the Center for Responsible Drug Policy, an organization that promotes recovery-oriented drug policy. Released Sept. 17, it tells the true story of Callum Bagnall, a London, Ont., resident who says he developed an addiction to safe supply drugs after he came into contact with clients of the government program who were selling their prescriptions at a low price.

“I got numbers and contacts for safe supply pills, and I was able to pick up safe supply drugs much cheaper than Oxys [Oxycodone] and Percocets,” said Bagnall in the film, adding he could get up to 150 pills at a time, each of them costing about $1.50 or less.

According to London police, the street value of hydromorphone–the main safe supply drug also known by the brand name Dilaudid or by the street name “dillies”–can be up to $30 per pill outside the city. Inside London, the price ranges from $2 to $5 due to its wide availability through safer supply programs, police said.

“It was almost like a dream for a drug addict,” Bagnall says in the documentary.

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

The city of London was the first place in Canada to test the safer supply drug program.

In July, London police officially sounded the alarm about the problem of diversion—where recipients trade their safe supply drugs for more dangerous, higher-potency substances. In a series of recent drug busts, police found evidence safe supply drugs are being resold, trafficked or used as currency in exchange for more potent drugs like fentanyl.

“I’ve seen it, I’ve been on the ground floor, I’ve seen how much diversion happens,” said Bagnall in the film. “It’s almost every prescription that people are getting, it’s being diverted to either dealers, guys like me, or other drug addicts.”

‘Cheap and Available’

Before discovering safe supply, Bagnall said he was already using drugs, but they were expensive. The availability and low price of government-prescribed drugs led him down a new addiction path.

“I would have already been at the end of my road and have gone to rehab at that point, if safe supply drugs weren’t so cheap and available,” he said.

In the documentary, Janel Gracey, an addictions physician in London and Bagnall’s doctor, said almost half of her patients (approximately 200) told her they witnessed safe supply diversion.

She said her clinic has seen “a dramatic decrease” in the number of patients seeking treatment because she said many of them “have gotten onto safe supply or know somebody on safe supply, and they’re buying off of them.” She also noted a sizeable decrease in patients seeking medication such as methadone and suboxone–which stop patients from craving opioids and prevent severe withdrawal symptoms.

Gracey said teenagers are among the most affected by the accessibility of hydromorphone through safe supply. Her patients are getting “younger and younger,” she said, starting around the age of 15 or 16.

“It’s cheaper than alcohol, only $1 a pill,” she said. “They go to a friend’s house or a party, and it’s there because it’s so accessible and so cheap that we’re seeing them getting hooked really early onto opioids, and then they’re in withdrawal.”

She added many of her young patients who are fentanyl users started with hydromorphone.

Proposed Changes

Bagnall’s mother, Joanne Bagnall, a registered nurse, watched her son go through addiction.

“Safe supply ended up getting my son addicted to opioids,” she said in the documentary, adding she believes “there should be no safe supply” and that a better option would be to make rehabilitation more accessible and affordable.

Callum Bagnall’s doctor Gracey said she is not against safe supply, and that it can still help people for whom other treatment methods are not effective. But the program should be regulated, she said, because the current practice “is keeping patients in addiction.”

“We just want to see some regulation such as witness dosing or offering safe supply at the safe consumption sites, so that they are not leaving with [the drugs],” she said.

As for Callum Bagnall, he decided to undergo rehabilitation and said safer supply “needs to be controlled before it gets out of hand.”

He said he hopes his experience can inspire others to seek treatment.

“It’s never over for you, you can always start over,” he said.