That sounded promising, but something didn’t make sense. Why had none of the police officers I’d interviewed told me about charging Canadian-based buyers with importing illicit fentanyl based on being tipped off by border agents? That would be a major charge, warranting some serious jail time. When I asked for more details Gray stepped in, drawing on her years of experience as a customs officer and now director.
“If someone has cocaine strapped to their body and they come through the airport and say they didn’t know how that cocaine got there, no one believes that,” she said. “If someone is driving in a vehicle, there might be a little bit more plausible deniability if they say ‘This isn’t my car.’ But if something is sent through the mail and if it contains contraband, when we or our police partners conduct our follow-up investigation they can say that they weren’t expecting a letter, it was mistakenly sent to them, or they don’t know the person that sent it. So the deniability goes through the roof. One of the biggest problems with anything coming through the mail is, how do investigators prove this person knew that this was being mailed to them? So the standard of proof is so much higher. If it now happens five times, well, it’s harder to say that you didn’t know. ‘Why would they keep using your address?’ But if it happens once, it’s very easy for them to just say, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’ ”
These sounded like massive challenges in prosecuting Canadian-based illicit fentanyl importers, but there had to be a way around them. I’d heard somewhere about an investigative technique called a “controlled delivery.” Basically, when law enforcement officers detect a package containing illicit drugs in transit, they allow it to go forward under their control and surveillance, then arrest the person who receives it once they’ve accepted it. With a substance like illicit fentanyl, it could be replaced with a decoy that looks similar. Couldn’t that technique be used by police? I decided to ask the Vancouver Police Department’s top drug investigator.
“In fact, it’s illegal for us to interfere with the mail, and that’s where all these opioids are coming into Canada,” said Inspector Bill Spearn.
It didn’t make sense at first. Can’t the police get a warrant from a judge to seize these illegal substances? I’d read my Criminal Code, but not the Canada Post Corporation Act. Inspector Spearn had.
It turns out that under our federal postal legislation, “nothing in the course of post is liable to demand, seizure, detention or retention.” The provision appears to be written to override powers that the police have under the Criminal Code. I had no idea. Although the CBSA can seize packages entering Canada, the police aren’t allowed to meddle with the mail. Needless to say, this poses a big challenge for them, given that our taxpayer-funded postal system has been co-opted by drug traffickers to ship illicit fentanyl with impunity.
And it’s not just fentanyl. According to the RCMP, cocaine, heroin, guns, grenades, stun guns, and even a rocket launcher have also been shipped via Canada Post.
“We need changes in the Canada Post Corporation Act to allow the police to legally intercept the mail, with the proper authorizations, of course,” Inspector Spearn told me. And indeed, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has asked the federal government to allow police to obtain an order from a judge to seize, detain, or retain letters or parcels being sent through Canada Post that contain illicit contraband. “They’ve been trying to change that now for five years,” said Spearn. “The Liberal government came out and said that they weren’t going to amend that Act. We can’t even reinsert a placebo back in the mail to do a controlled delivery, because putting it back in the system is interfering with the mail.”
Even if police had that ability to intercept mailed items with a judge’s authorization, there’s another dilemma. Letters and packages containing illicit fentanyl are often addressed to post office boxes. “They let it sit there for a week or two to ensure that it’s not going to be intercepted by the police,” said Deputy Chief Serr. The cost of running an undercover police surveillance team for two weeks at a post office—which, in high-risk situations like drug surveillance, could include both a surveillance and a counter-surveillance team—would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. And even if they did secure a prosecution, the quantity involved in such a seizure would be small. Simply put, in a world of scarce policing resources, it wouldn’t pass the cost/benefit analysis that drug investigators have to make in deciding where to prioritize their efforts.
The importation of illicit fentanyl—where the chances of being caught are so low and the profits so high—is a Wild West, and everyone involved knows it. The authorities are trying to fight the opioid crisis with their hands tied behind their backs.
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Is there any indication that fentanyl is being manufactured here in Canada? There’s some evidence of these secret labs, but given China’s massive supply role, they’re currently believed to play an insignificant part. As Pecknold told me, “Well, we keep hearing it. I haven’t seen any actual production labs cross my desk, and I get pretty well informed by the RCMP. We have had methamphetamine labs here; we have had other production facilities, but in terms of actually producing fentanyl, carfentanyl, we haven’t seen that yet. At least it hasn’t been reported to me.”
Assistant Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, the officer in charge of the RCMP’s Surrey detachment, said: “We get a lot of what I refer to as production. It’s usually where we get involved—it’s the cutting of it, or the pill pressing of it. They’ll be mixing it into either legitimate drugs, or they might mix it with heroin or might mix it with cocaine or mix it with caffeine and aspirin to make a counterfeit OxyContin pill.”
At any rate, the RCMP has put out an awareness notice for landlords about potential signs that a tenant may be running an illicit fentanyl lab on their property. They say that “micro-labs” could be in homes and apartments, motels, rental trucks, abandoned buildings, barns, and even garden sheds, and they’ve listed their warning signs:
• Unusual amounts of white or coloured powder on walls, floors, countertops, furniture, clothes dryer and/or vent
• Unusual thumping sounds that could indicate a pill press machine
• Chemical odours—often a strong vinegar smell
• Tenants reluctant to allow landlords to inspect the property
• Payment of rent in cash
• Surveillance cameras
• Curtains always drawn
• Exhaust fans running at odd times. Residents may wear filtration masks, safety glasses or other protective equipment. May remark that they are “painting.”
And if you suspect a fentanyl lab, the RCMP advises that you not investigate or enter the area but rather leave right away and contact them.
There is some circumstantial evidence of potential domestic fentanyl production, according to Deputy Chief Serr. “We’re seeing a lot of precursors that are coming in as well, which would be used not only for meth but also for fentanyl.”
I wanted to follow up with the Canada Border Services Agency to see what they were finding. Sure enough, “We certainly have seen some chemical precursors that could be used in the manufacture of opioids and fentanyl,” Lothian told me. “We also have seen certain lab equipment that gets imported—for example, things like pill presses or chemical mixing machines and things like that.” Gray added, “It’s really important for us and our law enforcement partners to look at the precursors and make sure we’re watching for signs of domestic production to ensure that Canada does not become part of a pipeline.” Dr. Richard Frank at Harvard confirmed that raw materials for manufacturing fentanyl and some of the necessary equipment are also entering the United States from China.
But the only concrete reference I found to domestic manufacturing in Canada came from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2017 fentanyl report. It identified three cases of varying levels of sophist
ication: an industrial-scale facility, a medium- to large-scale facility, and a lab in someone’s kitchen. Interestingly, each of these was busted in 2011–2012, predating the current opioid crisis. It’s also unclear whether these cases involved simply mixing imported fentanyl or actually creating it.
In sum, then, although illicit fentanyl is not believed to be manufactured domestically to any significant degree yet, powdered white fentanyl is being brought into Canada to facilities where it’s cut and mixed to make illicit drug products that can be sold here on the street or through “dial-a-dope” home delivery operations.
But if we get better at interdicting fentanyl entering Canada, do we run the risk of seeing more domestic production, sort of like what we’ve seen with previous synthetic drugs like methamphetamine?
“Yeah,” said Pecknold. “That’s a concern. For sure. We’re on the lookout for that.” But, as Deputy Chief Serr told me, “There really isn’t a lot of reason to invest in making a lab. I do think that if down the road we’re able to stem the flow a little bit we will for sure see more labs. But at this point, I can go on my Internet right now, in my basement, and order it through the dark web and have it delivered to my mailbox with very little risk.”
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I had one last question: Is there a way to identify the specific source of illicit drugs when someone overdoses?
“That’s something that I think is hard to track,” said Andy Watson with the BC Coroners Service. “But right now, we don’t have the mechanism to be able to find out where it’s come from.”
That’s exactly what forensic scientists have been trying to figure out at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Since fentanyl is a synthetic drug that can be made in a number of ways, it has what are known as “chemical attribution signatures.” These signatures provide details about the final chemical composition of the drug as well as clues to how a given sample was made, what precursors were used, and what its by-products are. Dr. Brian Mayer’s team at Livermore has even been able to capture this kind of information from fentanyl residue on surfaces that are typical in the real world, like stainless steel and vinyl tile. It’s neat science, but it doesn’t claim to be a silver bullet for investigators. It may point them only in a certain direction. And, at the end of the day, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
“I mean, it’s just a synthetic product. So this idea that we can shut it off—it’s kind of a joke,” said Dr. Mark Tyndall. “If we couldn’t stop heroin coming in, how the hell would you ever stop fentanyl from coming in in tiny packages and stuff?”
–7–
WHO’S BEEN HARDEST HIT?
Panoramic ocean views, majestic sunsets, cozy Adirondack chairs surrounding a crackling fire pit, a relaxed, small-town feel. A paradise on earth. It must have seemed the perfect place for Brandon Jansen to start again.
On March 1, 2016, the fit 20-year-old arrived at the Sunshine Coast Health Centre in Powell River, BC, after being released from jail. The private treatment centre is for people with substance use disorders, and couldn’t be in a more beautiful part of the world.
Brandon’s mother, Michelle, was desperate to help her son with his opioid addiction. He’d been in and out of prison three times already, each time released to a different drug treatment centre. In all, he’d tried 11 detox centres, recovery homes, and treatment centres since 2013.
Michelle had spent over $200,000 on private treatment to help her son. Some of the residential programs had cost between $25,000 and $30,000 a month. For those Canadians who could manage that at all, it could mean remortgaging their home, cashing out their retirement savings, or both. But what else can you do when your child’s life is on the line?
“Brandon had a smile that lit up a room and always had a twinkle in his eye,” said his family. “He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He dreamed of opening his own fitness centre and supplement store.”
But less than a week after checking into Sunshine Coast, Brandon was really starting to struggle again. He told staff he was thinking about drugs and feeling anxious. They gave him extra anti-anxiety medication at 11:45 p.m., but Brandon couldn’t get to sleep. He went outside to have a cigarette with two other clients at the centre and returned to his room at 2:45 a.m.
At 5:00 a.m., another client from the centre went into Brandon’s room and found him on the floor, his body crouched up. The client called for help. Brandon wasn’t breathing and his skin was cold and purple. They called 911, began performing CPR, and used a defibrillator to try to revive him.
Clients at the centre told the paramedics they thought Brandon had overdosed, likely on fentanyl. They gave him a shot of naloxone to try to reverse the effects of the overdose and continued life-saving efforts for another 30 minutes. On the advice of the emergency physician, they finally stopped. Later it turned out that Brandon had died at least 20 to 30 minutes before the paramedics arrived.
A coroner’s inquest heard from 35 witnesses. It concluded that the immediate cause of death was an accidental mixed opioid drug overdose. The toxicology report found fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl (a fentanyl analogue), and heroin in his system.
That’s not all the coroner’s inquest found.
“Brandon was an engaging young man who seemed motivated to attend treatment,” said Michael Egilson, the presiding coroner who investigated Brandon’s death. “The pathologist concluded that as Brandon had not been using illicit opioid drugs recently, his drug tolerance would have been lowered, resulting in his death.”
The combined effect of being incarcerated, where access to illicit opioids is limited, and the abstinence program that Brandon was on meant that his tolerance to opioids was greatly reduced. That put him at greater risk of overdosing when he used again. Remember that opioid use disorder is a chronic, relapsing condition. No matter how badly Brandon wanted to, he couldn’t just stop using on his own.
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Under India’s traditional caste system, the lowest of the low, known as the “untouchables,” faced social ostracization, segregation, and discrimination. But every society, including Canada’s, seems to have its own version—groups of people treated as second-class citizens or worse. An outside observer would reasonably conclude that criminals, Indigenous people, and the poor constitute Canada’s untouchables due to how they’re treated in our society. Statistics bear this out: these three groups are among the most vulnerable to illicit drug overdose deaths, and during the opioid crisis it is they who’ve been disproportionately killed.
The 2003 SARS epidemic killed 44 people in Canada and generated a massive mobilization of public resources to contain its spread. Hundreds of times that number have died in this country from opioid-related overdoses in recent years. Why has the response to these deaths not been proportionate?
Simply put, the lives of drug users (especially when they’re criminals, Indigenous, or poor) aren’t valued by our society. These are socially and politically marginalized groups that elicit little sympathy and attention from governments. And, as we’ve seen, people with substance use disorders are wrongly blamed for their misfortune.
But we don’t have to accept this. Gandhi called the untouchables children of God and worked tirelessly for their social acceptance and inclusion. Jesus led by example by regularly spending time with the social outcasts of his era, healing those with all manner of conditions and appealing to us to love and care for those less fortunate. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared that all are created equal and dreamed of a day when that would become a reality. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination. Either we value the lives of others and care for them or we think we’re better than they are and ignore their suffering. Whether our reasons are faith-based, grounded in respect for human rights and dignity, or based on life experience,
if the opioid crisis is to be given the resources and attention it deserves, we need a groundswell of care and compassion to bubble up across a wide cross-section of society.
I was involved in politics for almost two decades and saw firsthand that when a problem affects a group of people who are politically important (e.g., those who are organized and mobilize, vote in large numbers, donate to political parties, and can garner media attention), their issues get quickly addressed. I’ve also seen how challenges faced by marginalized and disadvantaged groups who lack that political power tend to be ignored indefinitely. Unless others who can get noticed speak up alongside them, nothing will change. Indeed, that’s one of the main reasons I wrote this book. I couldn’t stand by as so many people were being senselessly slaughtered by the silent death of opioid overdose.
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Soon after the inquest into Brandon Jansen’s death, the presiding coroner, Michael Egilson, was tasked with leading a comprehensive “death review panel” that would investigate every single illicit drug overdose death in BC between January 1, 2016, and July 31, 2017. The goal was to identify trends to help prevent further loss of life. It was a painstaking, file-by-file review of all 1854 deaths during that period.
When I read Egilson’s report it came as a real shock. During my research interviews only a few experts had even hinted at his major finding, and none of those individuals were professionals in the criminal justice system.
Egilson found that 18% of those who’d had a fatal illicit drug overdose died while under community corrections supervision or within a month of being released from jail. Brandon Jansen was one of them. There’s more: a full 66% had been involved with BC Corrections at some point in their lives or were under supervision when they died. It’s a surprising statistic that reveals a massive connection between the criminal justice system and fatal overdose deaths. Why?
Overdose Page 8
