Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth on Monday discounted warnings from RCMP officers about drugs from the province’s safe-supply program being diverted to the black market.
“There is no widespread evidence of the diversion of safe supply in this province,” he told reporters.
He was responding to various reports from the RCMP last week. The force issued a statement saying: “Organized crime groups are actively involved in the redistribution of safe supply and prescription drugs, some of which are then moved out of B.C.
“The re-selling of prescription drugs significantly increases the profits realized by organized crime.”
Diversion has become a significant controversy since safe supply developed several years ago as one way to deal with the steady death toll from opioid overdoses.
The concern is that users who obtain maintenance doses from pharmacies or clinics are re-selling them, to the point where the street market is flooded with government-supplied drugs.
Farnworth conceded that it might be happening in some instances, “but the idea that there is widespread diversion from the safe supply in this province is simply not true.”
He said the commanding officer of the RCMP has assured him of that. Criminal organizations are extremely sophisticated in terms of “how they can make things look,” he said.
The issue has been amplified after Alberta officials raised suspicions that B.C. drugs from the safe-supply program are showing up there. Premier Danielle Smith cited the Prince George seizures and the police warning, saying her province has been warning for years that high-potency opioids from safe-supply programs could be diverted and sold across Canada.
The argument this week is about whether diversion is “widespread” or just happening in isolated incidents. Police seem to be leaning toward the former.
The Northern Beat online news service reported last week that RCMP in Prince George suspect that safe supply is the original source in drug busts.
“We’re getting multi-kilo seizures of illicit cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine. And the safe supply has been present pretty much now in every investigation we’ve done,” Cpl. Scott Cundy told reporter Fran Yanor.
That RCMP detachment has confiscated more than 14,000 pills in the last year. “Our investigative theory is that these drugs are being all bulk-collected and then actually shipped out of province because there’s no reason for these pills to be hoarded in that quantity.”
Campbell River RCMP stated similar suspicions last week, saying 3,500 pills seized by way of a search warrant look to have been diverted from safe supply.
The Dilaudid brand of hydromorphone was found alongside four kilograms of other drugs, with evidence at hand suggesting the pills came from safe supply prescriptions.
The BC United Opposition raised the issue in the legislature Monday, saying the link between safe supply and organized crime is undeniable and it amounts to taxpayer-finance drug trafficking.
Farnworth insisted the RCMP commanding officer denies any widespread diversion.
“You make shake your head. You may roll your eyes. I will take that information rather than an opposition any day.”
He said Premier Smith should “do a little more research rather than respond to a single press release…”
The government’s stance is that hydromorphone is widely prescribed and 86 per cent of it goes to the general population of patients, often seniors, to deal with pain.
“That’s where a lot of that supply can also come from.”
Fourteen per cent of it goes through the safe-supply program to people dealing with addiction.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Brewer said Monday that police often deal with opioids that are “no longer in the possession of their prescribed owner.
“However, the presence of confirmed safer-supply prescriptions are in the minority of drug seizures. There is currently no evidence to support a widespread diversion of safer supply drugs in the illicit market.”
The argument as of Monday seems to hinge on the definition of “widespread.” Police working the drug beat at street level in at least two communities say it is happening to some degree.
Alberta officials, who oppose safe supply, have been quick to highlight their concern.
The B.C. government, which has maintained a commitment to safe supply for four years, insists diversion is not widespread enough to be of concern.
And the top brass of the RCMP are cooling down the detachment warnings and reassuring Farnworth that the program is not contributing to the problem.
It’s a safe bet that if it’s not a problem now, it soon will be.
