B.C. police seizures of medical opioids on the rise, causing concerns safer-supply pills are being diverted

Police seizures of hydromorphone have climbed in British Columbia since the province moved to prescribe the opioid as an alternative to toxic, illicit drugs, according to Health Canada data.B.C. implemented the safer-supply model in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, prescribing regulated medications to people at high risk of overdose in efforts to sever or lessen their reliance on the volatile street supply. Critics of the program have pointed to the potential for the prescribed medications to end up among the street supply.Health Canada analyzes illicit drugs seized by law enforcement agencies, and data show that the service identified hydromorphone in B.C. police seizures fewer than 100 times annually from 2012 to 2020, when the safer-supply program began. Seizures of the opioid analyzed by Health Canada then climb each year, reaching 408 in 2023.