Organized crime groups have shifted their efforts away from importing the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl and are now producing it primarily on Canadian soil. A briefing note prepared for the deputy minister of Health Canada — obtained by CBC News through an access to information request — lays out the changes law enforcement agencies have observed in the illegal market for the drug. "Superlab interdictions across B.
C., Ontario and Alberta suggest that domestic supply is more than sufficient to supply the domestic market," the note says. Over 1,150 toxic-drug deaths in B.
C. in 1st half of 2024: coroner Dr. Heather Morrison concerned about powerful new opioid found on P.
E.I. The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that roughly 44,600 Canadians died of toxic drug overdoses between 2016 and 2023.
Four out of every five of the 8,000 overdose deaths Canada recorded in 2023 involved fentanyl. "The fentanyl threat in Canada has definitely shifted from one of importation to one of domestic production," RCMP Inspector James Cooke, a member of the police service's organized crime unit, told CBC News. Cooke said that shift began roughly in 2019.
In May of that year, the Chinese government listed fentanyl as a controlled substance and imposed more regulations on its production and export. "It is believed this may have prompted the shift from fentanyl and fentanyl analogues being imported into Canada illegally toward domestic production in Canada," the Health Canada briefing not.