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00:00The following program contains mature subject matter and coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised.
00:08On this edition of The Fifth Estate, we're in Vancouver's downtown Eastside,
00:14the epicenter of a poison drug crisis in Canada.
00:18Since 2016, more than 4,000 people have died of opioid overdoses in this city.
00:24More than 50,000 across Canada. The main killer is fentanyl.
00:30I was overdosing, like, upwards of twice a day.
00:35I think the way that I'm going now, like, I could die any day now.
00:38Down here, it's regression.
00:41A panicked response that involved prescribing millions of pills.
00:45It wasn't working. The dose was too low.
00:48We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on our treatments and they're not working.
00:53And sometimes ended up in the wrong hands.
00:55These guys are counting pills right here. There you go.
00:58Did politics get in the way of saving lives?
01:01I think people have been manipulated politically by certain actors who want to stoke fear.
01:09We talked to experts who had the ear of the Prime Minister.
01:12We had the highest people in the government intrigued by this idea.
01:15And reveal why it all fell short.
01:18Safe supply itself is not a failure. Safe supply has never been tried yet.
01:22If this was happening to another group of people and we could do something about it and we've chosen not to.
01:29It's a crisis. We need help.
01:31I'm Stephen D'Souza. This is The Fifth Estate.
01:33What does a person who uses drugs look like?
01:51It's not always what or who you think.
01:54Each one carries their own story and faces their own unique set of challenges.
02:06Often masking years of pain and trauma at the root of their addiction.
02:10So, I mean, even as we're talking now, you're already thinking about where you have to go or how you have to get your next...
02:20Yeah, it's constantly on my mind.
02:23I meet TJ Felix in Vancouver on a Friday in September around noon.
02:31They say they've already done two shots.
02:34Just one would have been enough to kill me.
02:39Some people have this idea of what a person who uses drugs should look like after taking drugs, right?
02:44Like there's...
02:45Yeah, do I look like kind of a dope?
02:48No.
02:48What do you say to somebody who may have that stereotype in your head listening to you now?
02:53I mean, we all could be coming in all shapes and sizes.
02:56I mean, drug users come from all walks of life.
03:00I am a two-spirit Kelmuk, indigenous to the interior of B.C.
03:06We're each individuals and we have our individual needs.
03:09And I think medically that means acknowledging, like, that we have specific drugs that we use.
03:15And if we're not given those exact drugs, then, like, treatment doesn't work.
03:24They get their drugs on the street because, like so many chronic drug users, they don't have a safe, regulated option.
03:32If I had, like, a steady, like, reliable, you know, dose from a doctor or something,
03:38but that's not something that's really possible for me at the moment.
03:43It's a matter of life and death, really.
03:45TJ Felix grew up beside Eagle River and Shuswap Lake in B.C.'s interior.
04:03They say they were exposed to drugs and alcohol
04:06earlier than anyone should be.
04:11On and off, since I was about nine years old, I've struggled with alcoholism and chronic drug use.
04:21Yeah, I had a pretty fucked up childhood, I guess you could say.
04:24Yeah.
04:29By 2007, at the age of 18, TJ was living in Vancouver,
04:33creating music and art at a prolific pace,
04:37but also falling in and out of treatment programs.
04:42I think that it's entirely possible to be a functioning and contributing member of society
04:47while being a chronic drug user.
04:49But, you know, it's also, like, a very fine line, I think,
04:54that I've crossed many times.
04:56Tonight, TJ is heading to a rehearsal for an upcoming show.
05:04Just steps from their Vancouver apartment
05:05in the trendy Mount Pleasant neighborhood,
05:08they lean in to a familiar ritual.
05:12Music still helps me get through the day.
05:15It's how I communicate, really.
05:18I love making music.
05:19If music is their healing ritual,
05:29it's in contrast to their other ritual.
05:32Today, TJ uses a dangerous mix of fentanyl and methamphetamine
05:3610 times every 24 hours.
05:40The euphoria is long, long gone.
05:50I don't really get any pleasure out of using.
05:53It's just something that, at this point,
05:56has become a substitute for community and therapy
06:01and everything else that functioning adults, you know,
06:07need in their daily lives.
06:10TJ says using also keeps away the painful
06:14and dangerous symptoms of withdrawal.
06:17I would kill myself if I had to go through intense withdrawal.
06:21Again, it's something that you avoid it at any cost.
06:26And the worst, deepest level of addiction
06:30is when you're just using to avoid that.
06:34It's no life at all, really.
06:38When it revolves just around you not being sick.
06:52TJ was one of thousands of drug users caught by surprise
06:55when fentanyl began to take over the drug supply.
06:58The synthetic opioid, which is up to 100 times stronger than morphine,
07:06was a cheap and convenient way for dealers to make more potent drugs.
07:10In British Columbia, overdoses nearly doubled between 2015 and 2016
07:17and provincial officials declared an emergency.
07:21Mark Tindall is a physician whose research put him on the front lines of the HIV
07:28and then the drug crisis in Vancouver.
07:30At one point, there were two or three deaths a day in the downtown east side.
07:36And in the province, there was six or seven.
07:39So we knew something had rapidly switched
07:43and a lot of the deaths had no heroin at all.
07:46It appeared that people were now using fentanyl.
07:55By 2016, fentanyl was showing up in two-thirds
07:59of the nearly 1,000 drug deaths in the province.
08:01The pharmaceutical once used for chronic pain and post-surgery
08:06was being mass-produced by organized crime in clandestine labs,
08:11flooding the streets.
08:12So 2017 doubled again, 2018,
08:15and now all of a sudden we're up to like 2,000 deaths a year.
08:19And 80, 90% were all fentanyl and toxicology.
08:23It had a very chilling impact.
08:26Everybody felt at risk,
08:28and they were at risk if they were buying this on the street.
08:31Tyndall's patients were among those at risk,
08:35including Marc Desjarlais.
08:37Chronic drug user, he's known Tyndall for 25 years.
08:42I wouldn't be here without him.
08:44He really saved my life.
08:47He did more than what a doctor should, you know.
08:52He went above and beyond to help me,
08:55and I appreciated that.
08:57Tyndall's help came at a time
08:58when the crisis was making daily headlines.
09:01Deaths caused by overdoses of opioids and other drugs.
09:04With a public health emergency declared in B.C.
09:07This is an extraordinary challenge.
09:09Overdose fatalities in the province are going up, not down.
09:13As the death toll kept climbing,
09:17Tyndall started prescribing patients like Desjarlais hydromorphone pills,
09:23an opioid also known under the brand name Dilaudid.
09:26It was a drug already regulated and approved,
09:29though not for chronic opioid users.
09:31It was easy to prescribe, it was readily available,
09:36it was cheap, and it was already established on the street.
09:39So Dilaudid had already become kind of part of the drug economy.
09:43Knowing that I could write them a prescription
09:45for an opioid that wouldn't kill them,
09:48I just felt that was the only ethical thing that I should be doing.
09:51For Desjarlais, having an alternative to the street supply
09:55was like dodging a bullet.
09:57What did it mean for your life to be able to be on that program?
10:00Make things easier and, you know,
10:06do something that's clean and know what's in it.
10:09When you don't have a safe supply or when you don't have it,
10:12you know, in that way, where does your supply come from?
10:16Just from the street, I guess.
10:17Just from the street, yeah.
10:18And does that concern you,
10:20not knowing sometimes where it may be coming from?
10:23I try not to think about it.
10:25You know, I mean, down here, it's dress and let, I guess.
10:35But these tiny 8-milligram pills couldn't help everyone.
10:41For Tommy Kortzeris,
10:43who's been using in Vancouver for over 22 years,
10:47it wasn't enough.
10:48It's very difficult to come off fentanyl.
10:53And supplement it with some kind of pill.
11:01Coming up, what happens when the government
11:03turns its attention to the crisis and funds alternatives?
11:07Will the Prime Minister cancel the dollars for drugs?
11:10Just stop it and save lives!
11:13And we'll show how the fallout was being felt on the streets.
11:16Oh, I've seen them exchange pills.
11:18I've seen them do a crack.
11:19And they look around like,
11:21oh, nobody's watching.
11:22What do you mean?
11:22The whole world is watching.
11:23The following program contains mature subject matter.
11:32Viewer discretion is advised.
11:33Claudia West has traveled the streets of Vancouver's downtown Eastside for 14 years.
11:52This is home.
11:56The people here, her family.
11:58That's going to be a lot more homeless people.
12:03She is a chronic drug user.
12:07And three times a day, she makes a journey.
12:09For a safe supply that keeps her stable.
12:16Hi!
12:17When I was really sick, four years ago,
12:19they asked me if I wanted to join.
12:21And I go, really?
12:23You're going to do it here?
12:24Then that's okay, too.
12:25Here, she gets an injection of diacetylmorphine,
12:28pharmaceutical heroin.
12:30She's part of an injectable program helping 83 chronic drug users.
12:35This model was the first of its kind in North America.
12:38I joined it and it's pretty good, yeah.
12:42It's been keeping me clean for December 9 will be four years.
12:47Four years clean.
12:48From the street drugs.
12:49Yeah.
12:49So tell me about the street drugs.
12:51What were you using before?
12:52I was using heroin and fentanyl.
12:55Yeah.
12:56And the benzos in it, you know.
12:59It was getting pretty bad.
13:02In 2021, while in hospital for a serious infection,
13:05she was approached with a chance to join the program.
13:08How does it help you?
13:10Well, it keeps me clean from the street drugs, which is a big thing.
13:13Yeah, yeah.
13:15Is it about the high or is it about just...
13:17It's not about the high.
13:18It just makes you feel good.
13:21Like, I got stiff every day when I wake up and the shot loosens my body.
13:28Yeah, it just loosens it right out.
13:29Yeah.
13:32All right, so tell me about this poster.
13:34Yeah, so this is a copy of the original advertisement we launched Safe Supply in.
13:39So we took out a full-page ad in the Georgia Straits about Safe Supply and why it was needed.
13:46Back in 2018.
13:472018, yes.
13:48Wow.
13:48While Crosstown had been running its program since 2005,
13:55the term Safe Supply didn't enter the conversation until 2018,
14:01thanks in part to Jordan Westfall.
14:03I guess the message in the middle there is quite clear.
14:05People never have to worry that the next sip of beer they drink will kill them.
14:08Why can't we all have that safety?
14:10Yeah.
14:10At the time, he was a high-achieving university student.
14:15But in private, he was hiding an addiction.
14:18It felt at times I was living almost a double life, right?
14:21Honour student, sort of respectable, and then the other side, you know,
14:24seeking drugs on the streets and just the sort of sometimes agony that comes with it, you know.
14:32Westfall got sober and came to Vancouver to tackle the drug crisis.
14:36He entered grad school in public health.
14:38It seemed very clear to me that everybody was using these drugs,
14:42that they didn't really know what was in them.
14:45There's a person who used these drugs that when you know what they are
14:48and they're predictable, you're way less likely to overdose.
14:53For Westfall, Safe Supply meant legalizing and regulating opioids,
14:57stimulants and hallucinogens.
14:59He outlined his ideas in this 2018 concept paper,
15:04which also included expanding access
15:07to the kind of pharmaceutical heroin Claudia West was using at Crosstown.
15:12That program proved it.
15:14The evidence proved it.
15:15This idea caught on pretty quick.
15:16Within a year of us sort of launching this term Safe Supply,
15:20I was, you know, talking to the Prime Minister about it less than a year later.
15:24It started to create just a rallying cry for people on the streets who really needed this.
15:28In 2019, Health Canada created an expert advisory group to provide input on proposed pilot programs.
15:37Westfall was made co-chair, pushing for legal and regulated drugs.
15:42But he quickly realized the group wasn't willing to go that far.
15:46Take this drug we already have, just give it out to people,
15:49and it's fine, you know, problem solved.
15:53The thing is, 50,000 people have died of overdose,
15:55a preventable death in this country.
15:57Everything needs to change.
15:59Westfall realized that even having the ear of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wasn't enough.
16:05So we're presenting and encouraging Safe Supply to the Prime Minister,
16:09who's asking what's the strongest evidence,
16:11what are the options with the strongest evidence,
16:12and we, you know, took them through the concept paper.
16:16But at Health Canada, on this expert advisory group,
16:21the conversation is different.
16:24Health Canada supported hydromorphone pills as Safe Supply.
16:27They were available, easy to dispense,
16:30and some research showed they led to less street drug use and fewer overdoses.
16:37But internal notes obtained by the Fifth Estate
16:40show advisory group members flagged the potential for diversion
16:44as early as 2019
16:46and highlighted the success of options Westfall supported.
16:51We know now, and we knew then,
16:53that these tablets are not as strong as a drug,
16:56legal and regulated, for someone specifically using street fentanyl.
17:01It'd be like, you know, if you have a cup of coffee every morning
17:04and we took your cup of coffee away and just gave you a teaspoon of coffee
17:07and said, you know, try and start your day with that.
17:09For most people, it wouldn't work.
17:13But it's a fight you want to take on.
17:14Yeah, yeah.
17:16Claudia West also knew that the pills, often called dillies,
17:20didn't work for everyone.
17:21One of the things we've heard is that people say
17:23the people who have prescriptions for Dilaudid,
17:26they take those drugs and they sell them elsewhere.
17:29Yeah, yeah, a lot of them do.
17:31Yeah, they trade it for dope.
17:33Yeah, yeah.
17:34What do they trade it for?
17:35For heroin and coke.
17:37Yeah.
17:37Do you see a lot of that?
17:38Yeah, yeah.
17:39How often do you think that happens?
17:41Every day.
17:42Yeah.
17:42Yeah, every day.
17:44Yeah.
17:46What Wes described is called diversion,
17:48the selling of prescription pills to others.
17:51This sparked debate about the intent of safe supply.
17:55Supporters said diverted pills were still safer than the street supply.
17:59My common sense plan...
18:00But opponents loudly called on the federal government to shut safe supply down.
18:06The Prime Minister has spent $100 million on so-called safe supply.
18:12It turns out they're being resold to other addicts in order to raise the money to buy deadly fentanyl.
18:18Will the Prime Minister cancel the dollars for drugs and instead put the resources into treatment for addicts?
18:24Mr. Speaker, we are pretty fed up with this fight against evidence-based programs that actually are saving lives.
18:32We cannot allow the Conservatives to take us back to the failed ideology of the past.
18:38So just stop it and save lives!
18:41In B.C., the opposition Conservatives leaked a report revealing the NDP government knew safer supply pills are not being consumed by their intended recipients.
18:54Were being diverted and trafficked.
18:56They had proof from vehicle searches.
18:59They also identified 60 pharmacies offering incentives like cash to patients.
19:04In London, Ontario, where some local doctors had been trying out their own versions of safe supply,
19:13Diversion made headlines when police seized over 11,000 Dilaudid pills in 2024.
19:19The prescription drugs are being used as currency and individuals are using the diverted safe supply to obtain fentanyl.
19:33These guys are counting pills right here.
19:36There you go.
19:38And in Ottawa's Chinatown, one clinic became a flashpoint in the diversion debate.
19:43Oh, they're doing crack right there.
19:45And a neighbouring store owner had had enough.
19:48Uncomfortable.
19:50I've had employees quit because of this.
19:52Because they threatened them when they say, hey, please move in front of the door.
19:56At the time, Fadi Daya captured surveillance outside his cannabis shop.
20:00You know, people who are going to watch this are going to think it's ironic that, you know,
20:03here you are selling cannabis, but you're complaining about drugs.
20:07Yeah, but this is not a hard drug.
20:09Cannabis is not an addiction.
20:11These drugs are addiction that could take control of a human.
20:14He showed us videos he captured of what he believes are safe supply pills being exchanged in drug deals,
20:21involving people from an addiction clinic a few doors down.
20:25You've seen people just exchanging the pills that they've just gotten?
20:27Oh, I've seen them exchanging pills.
20:28I've seen them do crack.
20:30Sometimes these guys, they think they're smart.
20:32They step away from the building.
20:33They come over here or over here.
20:35And they look around like, oh, nobody's watching.
20:38What do you mean?
20:38The whole world is watching.
20:39Ottawa City Councillor Arielle Troster has also watched firsthand the shift in her community.
20:48Immediately, within days of coming into the neighbourhood,
20:51an entire criminal ecosystem developed around the clinic.
20:55Immediately.
20:56And it was obvious to everyone.
20:59You were seeing diversion happening right out in the open?
21:01Absolutely.
21:02We all did.
21:03Literally, we would see people walk out of the clinic, pull out their bottle,
21:06somebody else counting pills, we would see the exchange.
21:09When you were on the panel, none of this came as a surprise to Jordan Westfall.
21:14Was there a warning or did they have a sense that diversion would become an issue?
21:17Yeah, absolutely.
21:18Absolutely.
21:19And I think there was a sense of, we need to reframe this to the public.
21:26So the discussion wasn't, let's try to avoid this from being diverted.
21:30Let's try to reframe the messaging around it?
21:33Yep.
21:34Yep.
21:34I'd say that's exactly right.
21:35Coming up, one Vancouver doctor gives patients what they need.
21:42This is unprecedented in the history of opiate prescribing.
21:45The Dilaudid's didn't get people out of withdrawal.
21:47I had to switch to a fentanyl product in order to alleviate those withdrawal symptoms
21:51that are so uncomfortable for people.
21:52The following program contains mature subject matter.
22:01Viewer discretion is advised.
22:02A lot of times, my day is reduced to working on my art and using alone.
22:23Drugs have kind of become like a substitute for a lot of important things in my life.
22:29I have to do enough drugs to kill, that would kill any other person.
22:39Otherwise, it just isn't manageable.
22:44For Safe Supply to work, it had to reach users like TJ Felix.
22:53But they say the types of drugs the program offered simply weren't strong enough to help them.
23:01It was a complete failure as far as I'm concerned.
23:05It didn't do anything to stabilize me or, you know, it didn't meet me where I was at in any way, shape or form.
23:11If they just gave drug users the drugs that they need to function, there wouldn't be diversion.
23:17As diversion of Safe Supply medications took over headlines and tilted the debate against Safe Supply, TJ retreated to the streets.
23:27I think the way that I'm going now, like, I could die any day now.
23:40The program can never solve a problem that's created by policies.
23:44Christy Sutherland is a family doctor working in the heart of Vancouver's toxic drug crisis.
23:51In the early days of Safe Supply, she tried the government-approved hydromorphone pills.
23:57But soon realized at least 40% of her patients were not taking the pills she was prescribing.
24:03It wasn't working.
24:04The dose was too low and it didn't help the patient stabilize or help them get away from fentanyl.
24:10Really, they needed a higher potency medication to help them stay away from withdrawal.
24:14Sutherland chose to end the program after two years and worked on what she hoped would be a more effective alternative.
24:21But that meant cutting off her patients from Dilaudid.
24:24And for some of them, this meant a loss of income since they were selling the pills.
24:29If I was getting free wine from my family doctor and then if my family doctor stopped it, I would be really angry at them.
24:35The violence got to the point where your life was threatened?
24:37Yeah, so we had to make the clinic all telehealth and I had to leave town for the safety of the staff and myself.
24:45Instead of backing down, she came up with a revolutionary alternative.
24:49So we worked with a pharmaceutical company and a local compounding pharmacy in order to create a new fentanyl product that's both smokable and injectable.
24:57I think it's the first smokable pharmaceutical product that's ever existed.
25:00That's not easy. Why do that?
25:02Well, because we had nothing else at the time.
25:05She started off prescribing low doses, but soon learned just how high some patients' tolerance was.
25:12My first guess was 250 micrograms.
25:14I based that on the drug checking systems here in Vancouver.
25:17And the patients who we started said they couldn't even feel it.
25:20So you went from 250 to 20,000.
25:23Yeah, I never would have thought.
25:24And so now we have people on 20,000 micrograms of fentanyl per dose,
25:28which is just an astronomical dose that I never thought I'd ever be prescribing in my life.
25:33To put this in context, getting fentanyl at the hospital for a broken leg might be 50 to 100 micrograms.
25:42Sutherland was prescribing 200 times that amount.
25:45She helps just 70 people in her research program.
25:48So for my patient population, there's a rigorous intake process with an interview with the physician,
25:54their urine drug tested, they see the nurse, they see the pharmacist.
25:57And then we observe them to figure out what their individual dose is.
26:00And then they can enter into our fentanyl or heroin sales programs
26:03where they can purchase their drugs from the pharmacy for a little bit higher than what is the street cost
26:10to prevent them from selling it onward.
26:13But that they know it's a pharmaceutical version of the drug with no contamination.
26:17And it's a way to exit street life.
26:20Safe supply!
26:21Or we die!
26:22Die!
26:23Or we die!
26:24Safe supply!
26:26She wasn't the only one trying to find an alternative to the safe supply program.
26:32Others faced criminal charges for trying to help users.
26:35In October 2023, Jeremy Calicom was arrested for drug trafficking
26:41after operating a compassion club which sold a clean supply of drugs to users.
26:47They called it the Drug User Liberation Front, or DOLF.
26:50We wanted to get a realistic picture of what would happen if people had access
26:55to a regulated supply of substances that they had to purchase.
26:59Calicom had seen the impact of an unsafe supply through his brother,
27:05who began using while working in the trades and recovering from injury.
27:09It's very personal because when you have somebody in your life who uses substances
27:14or uses substances in a chaotic way, you realize that the most important thing
27:18when they're in sort of chaotic use patterns is that they stay alive.
27:22With a master's degree in public health and experience working and testing drugs
27:28at overdose prevention sites in B.C., Calicom worked with co-founder Aris Nix
27:33to create a safe alternative in the downtown east side.
27:36People really just had no resources or way to keep themselves safe.
27:40The government had been doing its own safe supply program with Dilaudid pills.
27:45Why not rely on that?
27:46The drugs that they were providing weren't sufficient.
27:48That's something that we were telling them,
27:50that you're going to give people drugs that they don't want.
27:53The club had to source drugs from the dark web,
27:56tested them at university labs,
27:58and then sold uncontaminated heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine
28:03to a select group of members.
28:05We had exemptions to the laws.
28:08We had overdose prevention site designations.
28:11What we explained, what we were doing, and how it was understood
28:13was a form of drug checking for people.
28:16We talked to the police.
28:17We talked to the health authority.
28:19We talked to the local government.
28:22We talked to the provincial government.
28:24We talked to the federal government.
28:25What did you start to see?
28:26What were the impacts?
28:27We saw that people overdosed way less.
28:30We didn't have anybody die.
28:31But we also saw things that we weren't expecting.
28:34We saw people that were accessing the club stop using drugs
28:38once they were able to gain that stability
28:40and not have to be, like, kind of flailing around trying to find substances
28:44or, you know, getting ripped off.
28:46People had to commit less crime.
28:48If they were committing crime, they had to do less sex work.
28:51They interacted with the police less.
28:54They interacted with the hospital system less.
28:56People felt like they were more stable in their lives.
29:04Like, I'd be dead ten times over if it wasn't for them.
29:07TJ Felix was one of just 24 people who were part of the first trial.
29:11Dolph was, like, a huge, like, part of my social life
29:15and communal, like, community building
29:20and my, you know, gateway to the community, really,
29:24and to just be around people every day.
29:27Calicum and Nix were found guilty of drug trafficking in early November,
29:31but that's not the end.
29:32They filed a constitutional challenge,
29:35arguing drug users have a right to safe supply.
29:38We think there's a real constitutional issue here
29:41that, like, needs to be addressed
29:43if we're ever going to get to the point
29:45where we don't have thousands of people dying every year
29:48from preventable deaths.
29:50It's, you know, our friends, our family,
29:52and our communities who are at risk of dying.
29:56The day that they raided the Dolph office,
29:58that was a pretty crazy day for you, wasn't it?
30:03Yeah, so, pretty bad day, yeah.
30:06Yeah, I showed up and I hadn't scored or didn't have,
30:13didn't do my shot for the morning
30:14because I, you know, was expecting to go into work
30:17and to be able to buy some.
30:19I started going into a panic
30:20and all I could think to do was to buy fentanyl,
30:25and I'd never used fentanyl in my life.
30:27I had no idea how to use it, how much to use.
30:31For the next two months after that,
30:33it was all in a fog of paranoia and drug ODs.
30:39Like, I think I overdosed, you know, at least once a day.
30:45People lost their homes.
30:48People got in trouble with the law.
30:50People died.
30:51People died after getting cut off from your program?
30:55People died.
30:55Blue streets!
30:57Hard streets!
30:58No more dying!
31:00No more dying!
31:03Every policy change originated
31:05with people having the clarity to break unjust laws.
31:10Both Sutherland and Calicum published peer-reviewed studies.
31:14They also say no one died
31:15while using safe supply in their programs.
31:18Was there any data or policy
31:22or medical reason for shutting you down,
31:25do you think?
31:26It was politics.
31:27It was 100% politics
31:30and fear of public outrage.
31:35Coming up, caving to political pressure?
31:38Our governments don't have the courage
31:40to stand up and say,
31:41this is what the physicians tell us,
31:43this is what the science tells us,
31:45this is working.
31:47And were the answers in plain sight?
31:49The evidence was absolutely clear
31:52that this was a treatment
31:54that could help people.
31:55We tried so many times.
32:01The following program contains mature subject matter.
32:05Viewer discretion is advised.
32:06Now I don't have any capacity,
32:20especially with time,
32:21in order to even think about recovery.
32:24Because, like, I'm constantly worried
32:26about where the next hit's going to be coming from.
32:27What do you say to those critics
32:31that say that, you know,
32:32people like yourself
32:33should just go right into treatment
32:34and they shouldn't be given,
32:35you know, safer supply of drugs?
32:37Well, they should spend 24 hours in my boots
32:40and see what they think after that.
32:43What would they learn?
32:45It's a hard life.
32:47It's not made for everybody.
32:50Every person has a different set of problems.
32:52And just slapping us in to treatment
32:56wouldn't help.
32:58Mark Desjarlais and TJ Felix
33:00are at the mercy of a fierce political debate.
33:04Chronic drug users seeking access
33:06to a safe and regulated supply to stay alive.
33:11I don't think that we deserve death.
33:13I think we deserve a lot more
33:15than what we've been given.
33:20Opioid overdose deaths
33:22have climbed to 18 per day in this country.
33:26Fentanyl continues to flood the streets,
33:29found in 63% of those who die.
33:32More than 2.5 million Canadians
33:34used illegal drugs in the last year.
33:37And though any of them
33:38could be at risk of an overdose,
33:41based on provincial data,
33:42less than 1% are accessing
33:44safe and regulated drugs.
33:47I think people have been manipulated
33:50politically by certain actors
33:52who want to stoke fear.
33:55And that has really pushed us back.
34:00Martin Schechter is a global leader
34:02in population health.
34:03In the early 2000s,
34:05he led two landmark studies
34:07that examined alternatives
34:09for people with severe opioid addiction.
34:11In the first,
34:12he tested pharmaceutical heroin,
34:14also called dicetylmorphine.
34:16Well, in Germany,
34:18Holland, Switzerland, England,
34:21they used this as a treatment
34:24for people who have opioid use disorder.
34:27So the evidence was absolutely clear
34:29that this was a treatment
34:31that could help people
34:32where the existing treatments
34:34were not helping.
34:35They stayed with the treatment
34:37far more than people
34:39who had been assigned to methadone.
34:40The second thing the study found
34:42is that it's actually cheaper.
34:46Schechter says access to medical heroin
34:48was never scaled up
34:50because of political fear.
34:52It has so much stigma
34:53associated with politics
34:56and moral panic
34:58and fear-mongering
34:59that government officials
35:02were afraid to fund it.
35:03So he tried something else,
35:05injectable hydromorphone,
35:07which contains the same active ingredient
35:09as Dilaudid pills.
35:11To our surprise,
35:13they did as well as people
35:14who were receiving
35:15dicetylmorphine.
35:17In 2019,
35:19this research prompted Health Canada
35:21to approve both injectable heroin
35:23and hydromorphone
35:24for opioid use disorder.
35:26Despite this,
35:28only a few hundred people,
35:29like patients at Crosstown,
35:31have access to it.
35:32We tried so many times
35:34to make an argument
35:36that this should be adopted
35:37as a treatment.
35:39We presented our data
35:40to municipal health authorities,
35:43provincial, federal government,
35:45but we were unable
35:46to ever convince them
35:48to make this as useful
35:51as it has been in Europe.
35:55Jordan Westfall,
35:56who co-chaired
35:57the expert advisory group
35:58on safer supply,
35:59pushed for these alternatives.
36:01Was that evidence looked at
36:03or was it ignored?
36:04How would you describe
36:05having all of that information
36:07already out there
36:08than not being implemented?
36:10It was kind of heartbreaking
36:11because we had solutions
36:12that were available.
36:13We had evidence
36:14that showed them
36:15and it was being ignored
36:18and it was incredibly frustrating.
36:21That expert advisory group
36:22ended its work in 2023.
36:25The Fifth Estate requested
36:26their final reports
36:27to Health Canada.
36:28They refused to share it.
36:30We then found a redacted version
36:32on the Government of Canada website.
36:34We did obtain, though,
36:35a clean version of the report
36:37and we can now share with you
36:39what wasn't released publicly.
36:41They said Canada's overdose crisis
36:43is driven by prohibition
36:45and an illegal market
36:46and that prescribed medications
36:48like Dilaudid
36:49do not meet the needs
36:50of all drug users.
36:52They recommended expanded access
36:54to more prescription opioids
36:56and stimulants
36:56and said the government
36:58should consider legal
36:59and regulated compassion clubs
37:01and retail stores.
37:03The Fifth Estate, though,
37:04has found no evidence
37:05that any of these recommendations
37:07have been implemented.
37:09Prime Minister,
37:10if things go well with the BCD...
37:12Every step of the way,
37:12we need to make sure
37:13that A, we're following science and data
37:15and that's exactly what we're doing.
37:17Despite advice
37:18from Health Canada's chosen experts,
37:20it wasn't enough
37:22to bridge the divide
37:23between science and politics.
37:26I'm not a fan
37:26of the federal government's safe supply.
37:30I compare it to giving people poker chips,
37:33dropping them off
37:33in front of the casino
37:34and saying go to town.
37:35We in our province,
37:36we don't believe there's such a thing
37:37as a safe supply of heroin
37:38in any of its forms.
37:41And even in BC,
37:43where more people are dying
37:44of toxic drug overdoses
37:45than in any other part of the country,
37:47safe supply is still a tough sell.
37:51Lisa LaPointe,
37:51the former chief coroner
37:52and your own provincial health officer,
37:54Dr. Bonnie Henry,
37:56both disagree with you.
37:58They both want to see
37:59the safe supply program expanded.
38:02I just disagree with them on that.
38:04I don't think the government
38:04distributing crystal meth,
38:06crack cocaine and fentanyl
38:08through co-op
38:11is going to solve this crisis.
38:12Our governments don't have the courage
38:14to stand up and say,
38:15this is what the physicians tell us.
38:18This is what the science tells us.
38:20This is working.
38:23BC's chief coroner,
38:24Lisa LaPointe, resigned,
38:26frustrated that even expert recommendations
38:28in BC were ignored.
38:31How did that make you feel
38:32when you saw the government
38:33basically undermine
38:34all the work that had been done?
38:36Here was a panel
38:37that had made recommendations,
38:40a blue ribbon panel
38:42that had made recommendations
38:44that they believed
38:45would prevent people from dying
38:48and government just dismissed it out of hand.
38:50It felt more political
38:53than based on any attention to the science.
38:59There is currently no
39:00National Safer Supply Program.
39:03Funding from Ottawa has dried up
39:05and there's no longer
39:06a federal ministry
39:07of mental health and addictions.
39:10Safe supply itself is not a failure.
39:12Safe supply has never been tried yet.
39:15Safer supply is a failure.
39:18To find out why government leaders
39:21disregarded the advice of so many experts,
39:24we requested interviews
39:25with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
39:27former Chief Public Health Officer
39:29Theresa Tam,
39:30former Minister of Health and Addictions
39:32Carolyn Bennett,
39:33and the current Health Minister
39:35Marjorie Michel.
39:36They all declined an interview.
39:38Instead, Health Canada provided a statement
39:42about the future of prescribed alternatives
39:45known as safer supply.
39:48In it, they said,
39:49These pilot projects have concluded
39:51and there are no plans
39:52to fund new projects going forward.
39:59Undeterred,
40:00we went to a Health Canada announcement
40:02in Toronto,
40:03touting new money
40:04for the toxic drug
40:05and overdose crisis.
40:08In the place of the Health Minister,
40:11Parliamentary Secretary Maggie Chee.
40:13Funding will provide
40:14a wide range
40:15of urgent interventions
40:16for those affected
40:17by the illegal toxic drug supply
40:19and overdose crisis.
40:21Health Canada earmarked
40:22more than $36 million
40:24for projects,
40:25but no mention anywhere
40:27of safe supply.
40:28I wonder if you can tell us
40:30if the government
40:30has given up
40:32on prescribed alternatives
40:33and safe supply.
40:34Is that the end
40:35of that program?
40:36Indeed.
40:36This is an announcement
40:37I think that really gives hope
40:39to a lot of communities.
40:40It is a whole
40:40government approach, right?
40:42We are working
40:42with all partners.
40:43But to the question, though,
40:44are we going to see
40:45any new funding
40:46for safe supply
40:47or is that the end
40:48of funding
40:48for those programs?
40:49Again, I think
40:50it's one of those cases
40:52when we talk about addiction
40:54and the overdose crisis,
40:56we really have to work
40:57with all partners on this.
40:58But what do you say
40:59to people who use drugs
41:00who may not be in a position
41:02to get into treatment,
41:03who may now have to turn
41:04to the streets
41:04because they can't get
41:06a safe alternative?
41:07That's an excellent question.
41:08I think this is when
41:09community partners
41:09really stepped up, right?
41:13But will communities
41:15and provinces
41:15support safe supply
41:17if the federal government
41:18isn't willing to?
41:20I approached
41:20Parliamentary Secretary
41:21Maggie Chee
41:22one more time.
41:23I just wanted to follow up
41:24just to get a sense
41:25if there is any more information
41:27on prescribed alternatives.
41:28I don't want to refer to him
41:29because I do apologize to you.
41:30I do need to run back
41:31to the writing.
41:32Let's refer you
41:33to the media person
41:34because I don't want
41:35to give you a brush-off
41:35answer.
41:45What's your message
41:46to the politicians
41:46and the people
41:48in charge of these things
41:49that could expand the program?
41:50They should open more programs.
41:55It has changed my life.
42:00Everybody is somebody's
42:02sister or brother.
42:04And it's just as easy
42:06as them to come down here
42:09and do the same things I do.
42:11If it was offered again,
42:12I'd be on it.
42:15We need help.
42:17We need a clean supply.
42:18And we're not getting it.
42:27Throughout it all,
42:28TJ Felix is still
42:29holding on to hope.
42:31I mean,
42:32it wasn't a solution at all.
42:34Tying, like,
42:35livelihood up in politics
42:36and it's got to end.
42:38It's just not right.
42:40I mean,
42:41do you hope that people
42:42can overcome the stigma
42:44around people who use drugs?
42:45I'd be dead by now
42:46if I didn't think so.
42:48I don't want to live
42:49in a world
42:49where that's not possible.
42:52Do you ever hope
42:53to have capacity,
42:55work on ourselves
42:56and to even think
42:58about recovery?
42:59We need to be given,
43:00like,
43:02you know,
43:03some grace.
43:05I'm Joanna Rumaliotis.
43:19Next week on The Fifth Estate.
43:22A violent criminal network
43:23responsible for home invasions
43:25and robberies.
43:27Brazen attacks
43:28often in broad daylight.
43:29Many of the suspects
43:30just kids.
43:31We've got very young persons
43:34committing very violent crimes.
43:36Smashing grabs.
43:37They're on the rise
43:38and videos like these
43:40have gone viral.
43:41But who or what's behind it?
43:43He was approached
43:44by somebody
43:45who told him
43:46that he wanted to see
43:48young teens
43:49make money
43:50and flourish.
43:52They are walking
43:53with bags in their hands
43:54and they know we're here.
43:56We get extraordinary access
43:58inside a police takedown.
44:00This is another potential
44:01break in the case.
44:03He pointed the gun
44:04directly at her.
44:06This trauma
44:06will stay with them
44:07forever.
44:09But what's happening
44:09to these suspects
44:10once they're caught?
44:12They can keep doing it
44:13and get away with it.
44:15What's to stop them?
44:16We're strengthening
44:17the criminal code
44:18to get tough on bail.
44:20We need to be invested
44:21in OU's future.
44:22Do you think the answer
44:23is to lock kids up?
44:25For those that are committing
44:26absolute violent crime
44:27they have to be held account.
44:28That's next week
44:30on The Fifth Estate.
44:32Want more from Fifth Estate?
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45:12the next week.
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