VPD Deputy Chief: “There is no doubt” that medications are diverted from safe supply

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Deputy Chief of the Vancouver Police Department. told a House of Commons committee this week that 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures in British Columbia had been diverted from “safe supply” drugs.

The comments sparked criticism from BC United MLAs and federal Conservatives, who said it was evidence of unintended consequences of the province’s prescription opioid program, which aims to reduce deaths from toxic drugs. They accused British Columbia’s NDP government and Ottawa of ignoring the public safety implications of a “taxpayer-funded drug trafficking” program.

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Fiona Wilson, who is also president of the British Columbia Police Chiefs Association, appeared before the House of Commons health committee on Monday and said 20 per cent of patients prescribed hydromorphone receive the opioid through the government’s safer supply program.

“We also know that about 50 percent of the pills that (police) find that are hydromorphone can be attributed to a safe supply,” Wilson said. “And, you know, that’s simply in recognition of the fact that someone who is in a bona fide safe supply program has a significantly more regular supply of hydromorphone.”

Wilson said the biggest concern, however, is organized crime groups producing counterfeit hydromorphone, which looks exactly like the real thing but “could be absolutely deadly.”

Wilson also expressed concern about the BC NDP’s decriminalization program, saying it has tied police’s hands in responding to problematic drug use both in the public and within BC hospitals.

“In the wake of decriminalization, there are a lot of those places where we have absolutely no authority to address that problematic drug use,” Wilson said. For example, if someone smokes crack cocaine on a beach with a family, “it’s not the police’s business,” she said.

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Wilson said the same goes for drug use within hospitals, which has become a flashpoint in recent weeks as nurses speak out about their exposure to toxic drug smoke in the workplace.

“There’s nothing the police can do about it,” Wilson said. “These are all things that we raised before decriminalization went into effect that we believe were not adequately addressed.”

Wilson added that the association supports the principle of “not trying to get out of this crisis” which, according to her, “is not going to save lives.” She was not available for an interview Tuesday.

BC United mental health and addictions critic Elenore Sturko and several opposition MPs have expressed concern that people receiving alternatives to prescription opioids are selling those pills to buy more powerful illegal drugs. As a result, these safely supplied medications are falling into the hands of organized crime groups that sell them for as little as a dollar a pill, often with young people as 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 British Columbia’s safe supply program.

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Despite that, provincial Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has repeatedly said there is no evidence of widespread diversion of medications from safer supplies.

Sturko said denying it, especially in the face of Wilson’s statement, amounts to “willful blindness … or incompetence.”

The BC NDP’s failure to implement adequate safeguards, such as requiring doctors to witness the person taking prescription opioids, “creates a situation where people could start using their hydromorphone as currency to obtain illicit substances,” Sturko said. “If people aren’t taking alternatives (opioids) and they’re just being trafficked, you’re not helping the intended person and you’re also creating this black market for drug use.”

In what appears to be a response to posts about in British Columbia they die from illicit toxic substances. medications (mainly fentanyl), NOT diverted prescription drugs. “We need to focus on what is causing the most damage.”

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Sturko called that statement “disturbing” and said it ignores the “fact that prescriptions are potentially contributing to death, not necessarily in the moment, but along the path of addiction that leads to death.”

When asked about the diversion issue during an unrelated news conference Tuesday, Premier David Eby said it’s the first time he’s heard the data. He said the government is following up with the Vancouver Police Department to get more information “to identify where the diversion is happening so we can minimize the diversion.”

“If we can identify things with the VPD based on what they see on the streets, we want to do that,” Eby said. “Because we don’t want those medications to be anywhere other than the person they were prescribed for, under the supervision of a medical professional.”

Eby said the government is implementing a series 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 not otherwise use unregulated drugs is harmful.”

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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 part that really concerns me, and I think British Columbians are concerned, is public drug use, where police feel constrained by not having the tools they need to respond to that public drug use when “It is causing a risk to the general public,” he said.

That’s why, he said, the BC NDP introduced 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 meters of building entrances. It was already illegal to use drugs in schools, splash zones and playgrounds.

That law has been blocked from coming into force after a Dec. 29 ruling by British Columbia Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson, who sided with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association and argued that banning the Drug use in most public spaces would push people into alleys where they are. more likely to overdose and die alone.

“We need to have a tool so that police can ensure public safety,” Eby said. “I have the same concerns as many British Columbians about public drug use in inappropriate areas, (such as) drug use in hospitals. Unfortunately, the court’s decision has been a challenge for us.”

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